Guyana, Ghana signed MoU to foster greater petroleum relations

The Guyana and Ghana Governments have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to
foster enhanced and strengthened cooperation in the two nation’s petroleum sector.
The agreement was signed on Tuesday between the Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat
and Ghana’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Thomas Mbomba as part of the Ghanaian Vice
President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s official three-day visit. Speaking on the sidelines of the
event, Minister Bharrat shared that the newly-signed agreement will work on building out
Guyana’s framework and architecture for managing the new and lucrative oil sector. “They
would have developed their framework for their management of the sector quite nicely. Ghana
has the experience and they certainly have the capability to… I think there is a lot that we can
learn from Ghana,” Bharrat said.
He pointed out that the West African country discovered oil in 2007 and like Guyana, it began
producing 120,000 barrels of oil per day. The minister said since it commenced producing oil,
Ghana has so far established a Petroleum Commission, a Local Content Secretariat and its
National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to ensure the prudent, transparent and accountable
management of its oil and gas sector.   “The MoU speaks to collaboration, cooperation, sharing
of information, capacity building, monetisation of gas because they have a national oil company
and we are now looking to develop our gas utilisation master plan,” Bharrat explained.
The minister continued, “The focus has always been on oil, but there is a lot that we can earn
from gas too apart from the gas-to-energy project to reduce electricity costs.” The natural
resources minister also addressed concerns that Ghana may not be the best country for Guyana to
partner with in the oil and gas industry. He said persons should redirect their attention to what
the government is doing to bridge the gap. “We just need to focus on what we are doing and
what we want to achieve to bring benefits to our people, and if we see Ghana as a partner and
ways in which we can benefit from them, then we are going to pursue the collaboration and
cooperation,” Minister Bharrat stressed. He noted that Guyana and Ghana officially established
diplomatic relations on May 14, 1979. Guyana’s independence movement was greatly influenced
by Pan-Africanist and the first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. During the celebration of
Ghana’s independence in March 1957, Guyana’s political leaders, Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Forbes
Burnham travelled to Ghana to attend the festivities. Throughout their years of leadership, both
Presidents Jagan and Burnham maintained good relations with Ghana.
Guyana has long shared common interests with those of the Republic of Ghana. In 1970, Guyana
joined Ghana and several other developing nations as a member state of the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM). NAM was officially established in 1961 by President Nkrumah, and the
presidents of Yugoslavia, India, Indonesia, and Egypt to govern relations between developing
and developed nations.