GEORGETOWN, Guyana – President Irfaan Ali Tuesday said that he will fully support the implementation of Guyana’s gas monetisation plan before the end of his term in 2031.
President Irfaan Ali addressing Berbice SummitAddressing the Berbice Development Summit Agenda that brought together investors from around the world hoping to explore Berbice resources, Ali said “any option that does not allow this country to monetise gas before 2030 will not have the type of support I would like to give”.
Ali said the strategy for Guyana’s gas development must include minimal debt financing for the country but maximum foreign direct investment and private sector participation. He said it must also maximise local, regional and diaspora participation while optimising value, resilience, sustainability and reach.
President Ali said that the plan must drive innovation and support local business development, noting that it must also lead to the monetisation before 2030.
“I am not willing to push monetisation beyond 2030. Constitutionally, I have an election in 2031, and I can’t run again and I’m not leaving this decision for anyone after me…So any option that does not allow this country to monetise gas before 2030 will not have the type of support I would like to give,” President Ali told the audience.
Guyana’s gas resources is estimated at 17 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and Ali said while he is not an expert on gas, he is an attentive reader and listener and that based on the technical advice he has received, he has narrowed down several options for further pursuit.
He said one scenario is to extract the highest possible value from every molecule of gas.
“Here, gas fractions are separated and each converted into high-value export products. Methane feeds a blue ammonia urea methanol complex, where carbon dioxide from hydrogen production is reused in urea.
“Then you have a liquefied petroleum gas – propane and butane – supply a mixed feed steam cracker, a gas-powered data center campus, which has digital export and new technology jobs,” he outlined, noting that this scenario has the highest value creation.”
President Ali said that the second scenario is the highest employment and inclusion option and that “the purpose of this highest employment and inclusion scenario is to create maximum number of jobs and the broadest local participation.
“This scenario diversifies across several mid-scale industries within the corridor: gas powers and heats, and heat plants for fertilizer, steel using gas-based direct-reduced iron, cement and glass, alumina, agro-processing, and cold storage, and a digital hub.”
He said the third scenario uses low-cost, reliable, gas energy to transform Guyana’s own raw materials into finished goods.
“This is cheap and stable gas energy, drives industries that upgrade domestic resources, cement and lime from limestone, glass and ceramics from sand, alumina from bauxite, and fertiliser from methane and captured CO2. These industries feed construction, mining, and agriculture. Power and heat are generated internally within each plant, not from a separate utility.”
According to the head of state, scenario four is mega-scale development, noting that a single gas complex would monetise every gas fraction on one site.
“Methane feeds blue ammonia, urea, and methanol production, mixed feed system cracker and PDH unit to produce plastics. All CO2 is reused on site, and the complex includes its own desalination, water recycling, and export jetty.
“This project anchors a national petrochemical brand and attracts downstream investors,” Ali said, noting that every fraction of Guyana’s gas can be transformed into high-value products and jobs.
“Whether the priority is maximum export value, maximum employment, domestic transformation, or a single mega-project, each scenario builds on the same foundation.
“Option one, the strategic Berbice investment, is a two-gigawatt data center, two MTPA alumina, and one MTPA gas facility. A liquid natural gas LNG plant, option two, and option three, an LNG plant and data center.
“Then we have another option, a Berbice region near shore, modular and scalable gas processing, NGL and LPG facility, physical and or virtual pipelines, small-scale LNG to supply gas throughout the region, centralised operation, an LNG depot in Berbice, serving as a logistical backbone for small-scale LNG, an ISO container distribution for future industrialisation of the region, and then a world-class, this one brings together a world-class consortium, as an option”
He said these are the options that are before Guyana and that the importance of the Berbice development agenda is to unlock Northern Brazil, particularly the States of Roraima and Manaus – two of the country’s fastest growing States.
He said that their greatest disadvantage is the journey to get goods into the Atlantic, but that “Guyana offers the opportunity to reduce their time to the Atlantic substantially to the point where the deep-water port in Guyana will position these two States as the most competitive states in Brazil”.
President Ali said that the outcomes of the Berbice Development Agenda Summit will feed into the upcoming Energy Conference in February 2026 “where we will be launching out the investment platform to put all of this together and to advance the work forward”.
