Desk

How to get into GTTCI Port Mourant — and which offshore safety tickets contractors actually ask for

Rohan Persaud · 2026-09-02

Buying a Tropical BOSIET in Trinidad on a credit-union loan, then waiting for ExxonMobil to call, is still the most expensive way to stay unemployed in this boom.

The Guyana Technical Training College Inc. (GTTCI) at Port Mourant is the in-country technician pipeline into FPSO work. It is not a walk-in CSEC college. In the cohorts described in public, people get in because contractors already selected them. The survival tickets that then matter are the ones those contractors name in writing.

Job seekers: treat GTTCI and tickets as steps after a real vacancy, then keep applying on GuyaneseJobs.com.

GTTCI is a contractor pipeline first

President Irfaan Ali commissioned the Port Mourant campus in February 2026. Director Professor Clement Sankat described an 18-month intensive residential programme leading to a globally accredited Advanced Diploma in Oil and Gas in mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and production, with classroom, workshop and FPSO-style simulation on the FacTor facility. Stabroek News reported a distinguishing six-month practical component aboard an offshore vessel. Sankat said graduates were already employed on SBM Offshore vessels and would soon work with MODEC and others.

How you get onto that programme is the part Facebook skips.

In January 2025, Sankat told News Room that recruitment up to then was being done by Exxon and SBM, because GTTCI was still being formed, and that GTTCI would take a stronger hand in later intakes — “not necessarily for this October intake but certainly the next”. The October 2025 cohort that launched the 18-month diploma on the Berbice campus, as reported by Guyana Chronicle and OilNOW, was 28 trainees: 20 from SBM Offshore Guyana, six from MODEC, and two from Puffer Guyana. The diploma is accredited by City & Guilds of the United Kingdom. Sankat also said the need to send students to Canada for that training had come to an end.

That is the practical picture: you do not “apply to GTTCI” the way you apply to GTI for a craft course. You become the kind of person a contractor will sponsor onto the 18-month diploma — or you wait for a public call that names GTTCI as the applicant window, then follow that circular and nothing else.

SBM’s own 2026 Trainee Technician posting, for Guyanese living in Guyana, is the clearest published bar. It targets four disciplines — production (operations), mechanical, instrumentation and electrical — and requires, at minimum, a two-year technician certificate from a recognised institute, NVQ/CVQ Level 2, or a technical diploma or degree; two years’ relevant experience; English; fitness for 12-hour offshore days, Monday to Sunday; willingness to travel for training outside Guyana; and medical fitness including drug and alcohol testing, TB and OGUK. Apply on SBM’s careers site, not through a “registration agent”.

If you are still at NATI, GTI or the Port Mourant Technical Institute, that two-year technician certificate and CVQ Level 2 are the feeder. Finish them. Log the workshop hours. Then watch SBM, MODEC, ExxonMobil Guyana and the other operators’ contractor pages, plus any Office of the President or GTTCI intake notice. Do not pay a stranger to “put you on the GTTCI list”.

Tickets: only the names you can verify

GTTCI itself is the long technical diploma. The short survival tickets are a different product. Only use names that appear in official standards or in Guyana contractor/government notices.

OGUK medical (also written OEUK). SBM’s trainee advert requires you to pass medicals including drug and alcohol testing, TB and OGUK. That is a fitness-to-work medical, not a course. Do not buy a BOSIET if you cannot pass the medical.

Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET). The Office of the President’s 2025 instructor advertisement for GTTCI said instructors “will need to meet requirements to work offshore (including Helicopter Underwater Escape Training)”. HUET is the helicopter-ditching module. On many OPITO pathways it sits inside BOSIET rather than as a separate shopping item.

OPITO Tropical BOSIET (T-BOSIET). OPITO’s industry standard for tropical waters is Tropical Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training. OPITO states that the maximum interval between successful T-BOSIET and the refresher Tropical Further Offshore Emergency Training (T-FOET) is four years. The compressed-air breathing add-on sold with these courses is CA-EBS.

T-FOET. That is the refresh, not the first ticket. If T-BOSIET has fully expired, you sit the full course again.

OPITO rigger, banksman and slinger. 3t EnerMech (ODITC) at Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, is published as Guyana’s first centre accredited to deliver those OPITO competence courses, with a 14-foot sea-survival pool on site. Confirm the live OPITO course list with the centre before you pay; centre catalogues change, and a sea-survival pool is not the same thing as a ticket in your name.

Do not treat IADC Rig Pass, North Sea BOSIET or NEBOSH as “what Guyana contractors require” unless the vacancy names them.

Why people still fly to Trinidad — and when that is wasted money

Before Guyana had an OPITO centre, Trinidad and Tobago was the regional default. That habit has a long half-life.

It is wasted money when:

  • The same OPITO standard is on offer in Lusignan (or another Guyana OPITO-approved centre) on a date that meets your employer’s mobilisation. OPITO is the standard; the island is not the credential.
  • You have no job and no GTTCI/contractor seat. T-BOSIET lasts four years, but recruiters do not hire a ticket. They hire a trade plus a medical plus a vacancy. An unemployed BOSIET is a depreciating receipt.
  • You buy the wrong climate standard. Tropical T-BOSIET is the OPITO product written for warm-water operations. A North Sea BOSIET with a different emergency-breathing system is not automatically what a Stabroek helicopter will accept. Ask the employer which OPITO code they want.
  • A WhatsApp “agent” is bundling the course with a fake placement. Pay the training centre. Do not pay a handler.

A Trinidad course still makes sense when your named employer’s mobilisation pack names a Trinidad OPITO centre, when the Guyana centre cannot seat you before your ticket expires, or when the specific OPITO unit you were told to hold is not on the Guyana timetable. Check the centre against OPITO’s standards library and the employer’s written list. Do not take advice from a Facebook comment.

A sequence that does not start with buying BOSIET

  1. Finish a technician certificate or CVQ Level 2 in the discipline SBM and GTTCI actually teach.
  2. Apply to live contractor trainee postings and keep a PDF CV that matches them.
  3. Pass the medical they name (OGUK, TB, drug screen) when they send you.
  4. Sit T-BOSIET / HUET / CA-EBS when they book it or when a dated offer requires it — in Guyana if the OPITO seat exists, in Trinidad only if the pack says so.
  5. Treat GTTCI’s 18-month diploma as the prize of selection, not a form you invent.

GTTCI ended the Canada year for the diploma. It did not turn survival tickets into a substitute for a trade. Search real technician and trainee vacancies on GuyaneseJobs.com before you buy a course.

Sources

  • Stabroek News, GTTCI commissioned at Port Mourant (15 February 2026): https://www.stabroeknews.com/2026/02/15/news/guyana/oil-and-gas-training-college-commissioned-at-port-mourant/
  • News Room, Sankat on Exxon/SBM recruitment and Canada training (17 January 2025): https://newsroom.gy/2025/01/17/oil-and-gas-college-at-port-mourant-to-begin-18-month-training-later-this-year/
  • Guyana Chronicle, 18-month diploma cohort (SBM, MODEC, Puffer; City & Guilds): https://guyanachronicle.com/2025/10/09/gttci-launches-advanced-diploma-in-oil-gas-at-new-port-mourant-campus/
  • SBM Offshore, Trainee Technician 2026: https://careers.sbmoffshore.com/job/Georgetown-Trainee-Technician-2026-SBM's-Trainee-Program/819794702/
  • OPITO, Tropical BOSIET / T-FOET four-year interval: https://opito.com/standards-and-qualifications/industry-standards-library/tropical-basic-offshore-safety-induction-and-emergency-training-t-bosiet
  • Office of the President / petroleum.gov.gy, GTTCI instructors (HUET for offshore): https://petroleum.gov.gy/article/office-of-the-president-gttci-applications-for-the-positions-of-instructors-for-the-gttci-in-port-mourant/
  • 3t Guyana (ODITC, Lusignan): https://www.3tglobal.com/about/our-locations/guyana/