CSA Ocean Sciences Inc. (CSA) was recently invited to Guyana by Environmental Management Consultants Inc. (EMC)., a Guyanese environmental services company, to visit their facilities and conduct cooperative in-country business development specific to offshore marine environmental services. The Guyana visit was attended by Mr. Gordon Stevens, CSA President; Mr. Bruce Graham, CSA Senior Scientist with considerable regional and in-country experience; and Dr. Chris Kelly, CSA Vice President, Science and Technology. Dr. Kelly just recently attended the 2023 International Energy Conference in Georgetown, Guyana.

For international companies to provide services in Guyana, there is a significant requirement for local content. EMC and CSA have a Memorandum of Understanding and is in the process of establishing a Master Service Agreement.

As part of the Guyana visit, EMC had arranged a meeting with the Guyana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As part of this meeting, CSA prepared and narrated a brief interactive presentation that included a CSA introduction describing our experience with oil and gas industry offshore marine services, CSA experience with international regulatory interactions, and our identification of Guyana-specific potential regulatory concerns.

The engagement had agency-wide attendance and was well received based on the provision of information concerning the effects of deepwater oil and gas production activities. This is progressing in Guyana at an accelerated rate with the deployment of a third floating production, storage, and offloading vessel in the offshore Stabroek Block operated by ExxonMobil Guyana.

One output from the engagement was the identification of in-country capacity building initiatives, such as the training of in-country Protected Species Observers (PSOs). PSO services are currently in high demand regionally due the amount of oil and gas activities offshore Guyana. CSA previously provided regional PSO training in Trinidad and the PSO training course is designed to teach an overview of offshore seismic survey mitigation and vessel strike avoidance monitoring for marine species. There is an opportunity for CSA, in collaboration with EMC, to offer this training in Guyana.