The Lamp 2017

July to promote the establishment and growth of small- and medium- size businesses in Guyana. An online supplier registration website has attracted 300 companies, 100 of which are Guyanese. Destiny ExxonMobil’s Russell Carter, a 32-year-old operations technical coordinator for the Liza 1 project, was born in Guyana and left the country in 2003 to attend Pennsylvania State University. After graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering, ExxonMobil hired him in 2007. Following several jobs within the company, including a stint as a facilities engineer on offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, he was tapped to become part of the Liza operations readiness team in 2016. “These are exciting times for Guyana, and for me to be on a project that will potentially help my country gives me a great deal of pride,” Carter says. “One of my career goals was to be involved in the startup of a large project in another country that can positively impact the lives of people for generations to come. It feels like destiny that it’s now happening, and it’s happening in the country where I was born.”

Photo by Robert Seale

supports this effort with a three- pronged approach: developing the Guyanese workforce; working with local companies for the competitive supply of in-country goods and services; and making strategic investments to support health, education and infrastructure programs. More than 400 Guyanese nationals are now employed in marine operations, catering, security, transportation, housing and other project support activities, as well as in the ExxonMobil office in the capital city of Georgetown. ExxonMobil and DAI Global LLC, an international development company, opened the Guyana Business Development Centre in

At the recent opening of the Guyana Business Development Centre in Georgetown, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman (left) and ExxonMobil’s CT Khoo, Guyana project executive, discuss how the FPSO Liza Destiny will be built, and how it will function offshore Guyana

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