Ryan Ba­choo

Long-await­ed en­er­gy dis­cus­sions be­tween this coun­try and Guyana will kick­start next year. This was con­firmed by Guyana’s Nat­ur­al Re­sources Min­is­ter, Vick­ram Bhar­rat, who is al­so in charge of the en­er­gy sec­tor in the South Amer­i­can na­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at COP30 in Belem, Brazil, Bhar­rat said he has in­vit­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to Guyana’s En­er­gy Con­fer­ence next year, where they are ex­pect­ed to hold dis­cus­sions.

Bhar­rat told Guardian Me­dia in Au­gust at the Glob­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Al­liance Sum­mit in George­town that Mooni­lal had reached out to him via a let­ter. How­ev­er, he told this news­pa­per he would not hold any dis­cus­sions un­til af­ter Guyana’s Sep­tem­ber 1 gen­er­al elec­tions. Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali’s Peo­ple’s Pro­gres­sive Par­ty/Civic swept to vic­to­ry, win­ning 36 seats to the We In­vest in Na­tion­hood’s 16 seats.

Bhar­rat, who is at­tend­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence in Brazil, said, “I per­son­al­ly would have been in en­gage­ment with the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy in Trinidad, and I would have al­so sent a per­son­al in­vite to Min­is­ter Mooni­lal to at­tend our En­er­gy Con­fer­ence in Feb­ru­ary 2026, which is our pre­mier event, and where we will get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tion and co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries, be­cause that ob­vi­ous­ly has been high on the agen­da of Cari­com, and I know it has been high on the agen­da of Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T). I’m sure we’ll have that op­por­tu­ni­ty in a few months from now to ac­tu­al­ly sit down and have a dis­cus­sion as to how we move for­ward in terms of col­lab­o­ra­tion.”

Asked whether the Petrotrin Re­fin­ery could be on the agen­da, Bhar­rat said, “I’m in di­rect con­tact with Min­is­ter Mooni­lal, and he would have men­tioned a few ar­eas that he would like us to work on, but we have not start­ed a for­mal dis­cus­sion on di­rect or spe­cif­ic ar­eas of col­lab­o­ra­tion, but I know he men­tioned that as one of the ar­eas that he would like us to dis­cuss. That is one of the rea­sons why we would have ex­tend­ed the in­vi­ta­tion to the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy in Trinidad with his team to come down to Guyana so that we can start those for­mal dis­cus­sions as to how we move for­ward.”

Last month, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar said the Petrotrin re­fin­ery can be restart­ed through a five-phase plan, ac­cord­ing to the find­ings of a re­port sub­mit­ted to the Gov­ern­ment by the Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee, chaired by for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine.

Bhar­rat al­so pushed the agen­da of re­gion­al en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty at COP30. He told Guardian Me­dia, “It’s not on­ly about Guyana, but it’s the re­gion, be­cause once the re­gion is sta­ble, once the re­gion is do­ing well, then that sim­ply means that we can de­vel­op faster as a re­gion and more ben­e­fits can come to our peo­ple. So yes, Guyana was one of the new pro­duc­ers of oil and gas in the re­gion, and we are look­ing at ways in which we can col­lab­o­rate with our sis­ter coun­tries. We have al­ready start­ed talks with Suri­name, for ex­am­ple. I per­son­al­ly would have been in en­gage­ment with the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy in Trinidad.”

It comes mere days af­ter the Min­is­ter of Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, En­vi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Ac­tion and Con­stituen­cy Em­pow­er­ment of St Kitts and Nevis called for greater in­cen­tivi­sa­tion of green en­er­gy to be­gin the phase-out of fos­sil fu­els.