No more extension for oil block bids- Jagdeo

Last Updated on Friday, 11 August 2023, 18:02 by Denis Chabrol

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Friday ruled out a further extension beyond the September 12, 2023 deadline for bidding for 14 oil blocks offshore Guyana, saying that the regulatory framework was now in place to facilitate the process.

In an interaction with participants at a Ghana Chamber of Commerce Guyana conference on local content, he said now that government has a new model Production Sharing Agreement and a new Petroleum Activities law has been approved by the National Assembly, next month’s deadline would be final.

“We’ve had to extend the deadline a few times because of our inability to complete these two most important documents but now that they’ve been completed, I don’t anticipate the need to shift the deadline again,” he said.

The bid round was formally launched on December 9, 2022 and a deadline of April 14, 2023 had been set with the intention of awarding contracts in May, 2023. However, the Natural Resources Ministry on April 12 extended the deadline for submission for the bid round to July 15.

But on April 12, 2023, the Ministry of Natural Resources announced that the extension of the Guyana 2022 Licensing Round’s bid submission deadline was moved to July 15, 2023. However, on July 26, government announced that it had set the new deadline for September, 2023.

At stake are 11 oil blocks in shallow waters and three in deep and ultra deep waters.

No high-level representatives of the parliamentary opposition were present at most of the two-day conference.