LatinNews Daily - 11 August 2023

*Guyana’s legislature has passed a new bill on petroleum activities, replacing 1986 legislation regulating the oil sector. The new bill provides for the effective exploration, production, storage, and transportation of petroleum in Guyana which has drawn major international interest since the discovery of offshore oil in 2015. According to a statement by the government’s department of public information (DPI), the bill is “the last of three major pieces of legislation passed by the national assembly aimed at harnessing the benefits of the oil and gas sector for the country’s development”. The DPI statement cites the country’s natural resources minister, Vickram Bharrat, as saying that “the 1986 Act speaks mostly towards exploration and production. Now, we are adding new dimensions in the form of storage and transportation of hydrocarbons, and… the geological storage license for carbon dioxide. This is also included as a new feature” in the bill. The DPI statement adds that the “underground carbon storage license grants entities the exclusive right to explore for potential carbon storage sites in an area, as specified by the license, develop the storage site, and permanently store and undertake activities related to carbon dioxide”. It notes that the new bill also allows for the issuance of permits to conduct geological and geophysical surveys, both offshore and onshore, among other things.