Guyana’s Local Content Act 2021: what operators, contractors and suppliers in oil and gas need to know

The Act, and who it covers

The Local Content Act 2021 (Act No. 18 of 2021) was passed by the National Assembly on 29 December 2021 and published in the Official Gazette (Extraordinary) on 31 December 2021. It applies to local content in all operations and activities in the petroleum sector for Guyana. Every Contractor, Sub-Contractor or Licensee shall implement local content as an essential component of their petroleum operations. “Local content” means the monetary value of inputs from the supply of goods, or the provision of services, by Guyanese nationals or Guyanese companies, and includes local capacity development.

A “Guyanese national” is a citizen of Guyana. A “Guyanese company” is, in outline, a Companies Act company beneficially owned by Guyanese nationals who exercise voting rights representing at least 51 per cent of the issued shares, with Guyanese nationals holding at least 75 per cent of executive and senior management positions and at least 90 per cent of non-managerial and other positions; or a partnership between Guyanese nationals and such a company. A Contractor includes a person who enters into a petroleum agreement with the Minister; a Licensee is the holder of a licence under the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act; and a Sub-Contractor includes a person who has agreed with a Contractor or Licensee to provide goods and services in that supply chain, as outlined in Secretariat guidelines.

The Local Content Secretariat and the Registers

The Act establishes a unit within the Ministry responsible for petroleum, known as the Local Content Secretariat, consisting of a Director and such other members as the Minister may appoint. Its functions include developing implementation measures and guidelines, maintaining Local Content Registers, recommending plans for approval or refusal, conducting audits, and measuring local content performance. The Secretariat must maintain registers of (a) Guyanese nationals for employment and (b) Guyanese nationals and Guyanese companies from which goods and services may be procured. A certificate of registration is an annual certificate, renewable on the anniversary of its issue. Only a registered Guyanese national or Guyanese company may be measured for First Schedule compliance; unregistered suppliers do not count towards those minimum levels.

A registered person must immediately notify the Secretariat of a change in citizenship, or of a change in company composition that would take it outside the statutory definition. Failure to notify is an offence, punishable on summary conviction by a fine of one million dollars (individual) or five million dollars (body corporate), and the person is to be struck off the Register. Monetary penalties in the Act are expressed in dollars, that is, Guyana dollars. On 22 September 2026 the Ministry of Natural Resources, through the Secretariat, announced that the official Local Content Portal had moved from lcregister.petroleum.gov.gy to localcontent.gov.gy. Existing accounts, applications and certificates remain valid.

Minimum local content levels in the First Schedule

A Contractor, Sub-Contractor or Licensee shall comply with the minimum local content levels set out in the First Schedule in carrying out any petroleum operation. The Schedule lists 40 sectors and sub-sectors, with percentage targets headed “End of 2022”. Those are the minimum levels enacted in 2021. The Minister may amend them by Order subject to negative resolution of the National Assembly. As at the date of this note, no amending Act, and no published Ministerial Order amending the First Schedule, has been identified. The original Schedule therefore remains the operative list of minimum levels.

Targets range from 5 per cent (engineering and machining) to 100 per cent. The 100 per cent categories are immigration support services; work permit, visa and in-water activity permit services; customs brokerage; ground transportation of personnel; and local insurance services. Other examples, at 90 per cent, include office-space rental, accommodation, janitorial and laundry, catering and local legal services. The Schedule should be consulted for the complete list. The Minister may waive the requirement where, after consultation with the Secretariat, an operation is deemed to be of national interest; where compliance is not possible because of a lack of current Guyanese capacity; or where a pre-commencement Master Services Agreement still then in force prevents compliance.

Local content plans and reports

A Contractor or Licensee must submit a five-year Local Content Master Plan to the Minister for approval within four months of the grant of a licence, a transfer of interest, or entering into a petroleum agreement (with a corresponding four-month period for persons already in that position when the Act came into operation). A Sub-Contractor must submit a Master Plan within four months of entering an agreement with a Contractor, Sub-Contractor or Licensee. The Master Plan is to be updated every five years and must include Employment, Procurement and Capacity Development Sub-Plans, quality and quantity criteria, and a statement and estimate of the value of local content. A Local Content Annual Plan must be submitted within 60 days before, but no later than 30 days after, the beginning of each calendar year, and then implemented. The Minister shall not refuse a plan without first giving written notice of the grounds and a period for representations. The Secretariat is to inform the applicant of the decision within 45 days of receipt.

A local content report must also be provided to the Secretariat within 30 days after the end of each half calendar year. The Secretariat’s Half-Yearly Report Submission Guideline (Version 4, 13 June 2025) treats those deadlines as 30 July and 30 January. The Second Schedule also requires half-yearly reports on employment, procurement and capacity development. An annual performance report for the previous year must be submitted within 45 days of the commencement of a calendar year. The Secretariat’s Performance Report Submission Guideline (Version 1.0, 30 January 2023) treats that deadline as 15 February, after which the Secretariat has 45 days to issue a certificate of compliance or non-compliance. Data on local content must be maintained in Guyana.

Procurement, Master Services Agreements, and penalties

Local content must be incorporated into bid evaluation criteria. The Secretariat must be notified in writing of any proposed contract or purchase order that is to be sole sourced and relates to petroleum operations, and of any competitively bid contract or purchase order that exceeds the value prescribed by the Minister by Order. Awards are to follow a widely circulated public tender, except that sole sourcing may be used only with the Minister’s approval after consultation with the Secretariat. Where two or more bids are equal, or are within 5 per cent of each other when financially evaluated but otherwise equal, the bid containing the highest level of local content shall be selected. Master Services Agreements must be submitted to the Secretariat for review within 30 days of execution.

The principal summary offences include: submitting a plan, report or other information that the person knows, or ought reasonably to have known, is false or misleading, or aiding or abetting a contravention in order to defeat local content obligations — a fine of five million dollars (individual) or ten million dollars (body corporate); carrying out petroleum operations without the minimum local content requirement — fifty million dollars; submitting false or misleading information for a certificate of qualification, or failing to satisfy the prescribed content of an approved plan — ten million dollars; failing to submit a required plan, return, report or other document — five million dollars; and late submission, failure to submit a performance report, failure to comply with a request for information, or unauthorised disclosure of information that must be treated as secret — one million dollars. Officers or agents of a body corporate whose consent, connivance or neglect is proved may be liable to the same penalty as the company.

Looking ahead

As at November 2026, the Act as enacted in 2021, and its original First Schedule, remain the operative legal framework. On 4 November 2026 the Department of Public Information reported that the Director of the Local Content Secretariat, speaking at the Guyana Supplier Forum 2026, confirmed that the government is looking to amend the Act after five years of implementation, and that the Secretariat is examining opportunities to expand the areas in which Guyanese businesses can participate, with the specific additions still being considered by policymakers. Until an amending Act or a Ministerial Order is published and brought into force, the existing statute and Schedule continue to apply.