Guyana’s Gas Gamble Is No Panacea

BY: Hem Kumar 

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣

Guyana is being sold another expensive promise.

At the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, the language was once again grand: gas as the bridge to industrialisation, Berbice as an emerging hub, infrastructure as destiny. But behind the polished pitch lies an uncomfortable truth — the country is being asked to embrace another multibillion-dollar commitment before the full cost of the first one has even been digested.

The Berbice gas vision is now being discussed as though it were a natural next step in Guyana’s development. In reality, it looks more like the widening of a fiscal trap. ExxonMobil has already framed the new Berbice gas pipeline as a US$2 billion investment, while the original Gas-to-Energy project has been tied to long-term state payments, including US$55 million annually for 20 years for the pipeline and another US$51 million a year linked to the plant and NGL facilities. That is not a cheap transition to energy security. That is a decades-long financial obligation.

And the timing should worry every serious observer.
Guyana’s debt has reportedly climbed from about US$1.8 billion in 2019 to more than US$7.7 billion in 2025, with another US$1.7 billion added to finance the 2025 budget.

At the same time, oil revenues remain the country’s fiscal lifeline, with about US$2.4 billion flowing into the Natural Resource Fund in 2025 and oil expected to cover roughly 32% of the 2026 budget. In other words, the state is already leaning heavily on petroleum income to sustain spending, even as it is being pushed toward fresh capital commitments that will demand more borrowing, more guarantees, or more public exposure.
That is why the current marketing campaign around gas deserves far more scrutiny than applause.

The business chambers, too, should be pressed on their enthusiasm. The Private Sector Commission and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry are speaking as though gas will automatically unlock factories, ports, fertilizers, data centres, and a new industrial corridor. But that confidence rests more on aspiration than on proof. The question is not whether gas can support development in theory. The question is whether Guyana can afford the scale of infrastructure being proposed, and whether those investments will ever generate returns sufficient to justify their cost.

This is where the rhetoric becomes misleading. Development is being packaged as inevitability, when it is really a gamble. A deepwater port, expanded road links to northern Brazil, industrial estates, and gas-fed manufacturing cannot be wished into existence by conference speeches. They require rigorous feasibility, transparent financing, realistic demand projections, and public accountability. None of those can be replaced by optimism.

The danger is that Berbice is being turned into a slogan before it becomes a strategy.
Guyana does need diversification. It does need cheaper power, stronger logistics, and a wider industrial base. But none of that justifies pretending that every gas-linked project is automatically a national good. A project that arrives burdened by controversy, cost escalation, and long repayment horizons should not be gift-wrapped and sold as the answer to everything.

Because panaceas are convenient. They are also false.

And if this gas expansion fails to deliver the promised returns, the burden will not fall on the conference speakers, the corporate champions, or the chambers of commerce. It will fall on the people of Guyana — through higher fiscal pressure, deeper debt exposure, and yet another national promise that costs far more than it delivers.

Guyana deserves development.
It does not deserve another expensive illusion.