Desk

Oil and gas jobs in Guyana this week: how to actually get hired in 2026

Rohan Persaud · 2026-09-01

If you are waiting for ExxonMobil to post a vacancy on Facebook before you apply, you are looking in the wrong place.

The Ministry of Natural Resources has already approved 2026 local content annual plans for more than 40 oil-sector companies. Those plans are in the implementation phase and include employment sub-plans. At the same time, ExxonMobil’s fifth Stabroek development, Uaru, is in the installation window ahead of production later this year. Most of the people being hired for that work are contractors, not the operator.

Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat said at the June 2026 approval ceremony that many Guyanese still do not really understand how the sector works. Here is the practical version: where to register, who actually hires, what to put on a Guyana-ready CV, and how not to get scammed.

Browse current Guyana vacancies on GuyaneseJobs.com. Employers: post a job and reach seekers who are already looking in-country.

Why this week, not “someday”

On 17 June 2026 the Local Content Secretariat handed over approvals at Duke Lodge in Kingston. Official coverage named, among others, ExxonMobil Guyana, MODEC, CNOOC Petroleum Guyana, Guyana Deep Water Operations Inc (SBM Offshore), SLB, Halliburton, Saipem, Baker Hughes, Ramps Logistics, Technip, Airswift and G-Port. Kaieteur News, citing the ministry, noted that each annual plan has a procurement, employment and capacity-development sub-plan.

That is the legal hook. The Local Content Act 2021 requires contractors, subcontractors and licensees to prioritise Guyanese nationals and Guyanese companies. Approved plans are the document the Secretariat uses to monitor hiring for the rest of 2026.

The operational hook is Uaru. OilNOW, reporting on 31 August 2026 from the project environmental impact assessment, said the US$12.7 billion development could employ up to about 540 people at peak development drilling and about 600 during installation of the Errea Wittu FPSO and associated subsea work. Those figures are preliminary. Once production is settled, the standing operations workforce is estimated at about 100 to 160. The EIA also flags onshore demand: shorebases, warehouses, pipe yards, fabrication, fuel, waste, marine and aviation support.

Keep two employment numbers straight:

  • Minister Bharrat, in June 2026, put direct Guyanese employment in oil and gas at approximately 7,000.
  • ExxonMobil Guyana President Alistair Routledge, at the same event, said that by 31 December 2025 Guyanese were about 68 per cent of the supporting workforce, with 1,800 Guyanese working offshore and about one-third of Guyanese workers women.

Routledge also said it is getting harder to find additional Guyanese workers at the skill levels the industry demands. That is a signal, not a closed door: unskilled “oil money” applications sit unread; certified, safety-ready, contractor-facing applications do not.

Step 1: Get on the official Local Content Register

The most useful free step for a Guyanese national who wants petroleum-sector work is the Local Content Register, run by the Local Content Secretariat.

Register here: https://lcregister.petroleum.gov.gy/

Choose Employment Registration (individuals) or Supplier Registration (Guyanese companies). First-time applicants: register as a new user, verify the email, log in, complete the form with supporting documents, then check status in the same account.

Then open Notices for Individual Employment: https://lcregister.petroleum.gov.gy/opportunities/notices-for-individual-employment/

As of 31 August 2026 that board still listed G-Boats Inc. recruiting a four-month Human Resources intern, posted 19 August, closing 11 September 2026, aimed at recent graduates. In July and August, Baker Hughes, Tenaris, Saipem and Halliburton listed field, lab, HR and logistics roles with closing dates measured in days. If a notice closed last week, do not WhatsApp the company “anyway”. Watch the next one and keep the register profile current.

Step 2: Apply where the headcount actually sits

ExxonMobil Guyana does hire, but it is not a field labour force in the way SBM Offshore, Saipem, Baker Hughes, Halliburton or MODEC are. For Uaru, reporting based on the EIA says the workforce will largely be supplied by contractors.

Search in this order:

  1. Contractor career pages and the Local Content employment notices.
  2. ExxonMobil Guyana careers and jobs.exxonmobil.com. If nothing matches, the company says you may upload a résumé for future consideration; they contact you only if you fit a role.
  3. The National Job Bank at https://jobs.gov.gy/ — free, all ten regions, run for the Ministry of Labour’s Central Recruitment and Manpower Agency (CRMA). Register, upload a résumé, set alerts. On 31 August 2026 the public homepage showed 2,529 jobs, 13,880 job seekers and 880 employers. Filter by region if you are in Berbice, Essequibo or the hinterland, not only Georgetown.

CRMA still does walk-in matching. The Ministry of Labour head office is at 82 Brickdam, Georgetown (next to the GFF headquarters and the Palms), +592 226-6115.

University students: ExxonMobil’s three-month internship (typically June–August) has targeted Guyanese undergraduates in third and fourth year across engineering, geoscience, environment, finance, IT and procurement. The 2026 intake closed on 15 January 2026. Watch official channels in the last quarter of each year. Outstanding interns have been hired full-time.

Technicians: the Guyana Technical Training College Inc. (GTTCI) at Port Mourant, Region Six, was opened in February 2026. It runs an 18-month intensive residential programme to an Advanced Diploma in oil and gas (mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and production), with FPSO-style simulation on campus. That is the Berbice route into contractor technician pipelines.

What a Guyana-ready oil CV looks like

Public service and petroleum contractor applications are not the same document.

For oil and gas contractors, front-load citizenship and where you can mobilise from; tickets you actually hold (BOSIET/HUET, medical, trade or NVQ/CVQ, GTTCI or technical diploma); specific safety work if you have done it; and contractor names and assets, not “energy professional”. Use a dated PDF named Firstname-Lastname-Role-2026.pdf. WhatsApp screenshots of a CV are how applications die.

For public service, follow the circular. The Public/Police Service Commission uses P.S.C. Form No. 31 for outside applicants and Form No. 30 for serving officers seeking advertised promotions (ppsc.gov.gy/careers). A glossy private-sector CV will not substitute for the form.

Do not copy a salary from a Trinidad or Houston posting. Minister Bharrat has said the government now wants comparable remuneration for Guyanese with comparable qualifications, training, certification and experience. That is a policy direction, not a published pay scale.

How to avoid the fake “oil job”

In late July 2026, Acting Chancellor Roxane George warned that fake job advertisements, online scams and social media are being used to recruit people into exploitation, often starting with a job someone chose to take.

Apply on named company sites, the Local Content notices, jobs.gov.gy, or GuyaneseJobs.com. Do not pay a “registration fee”, “medical deposit” or “visa processing charge” to a stranger on WhatsApp. Nobody legitimate will hire you as an “Exxon technician” after a voice note. If an offer requires you to surrender a passport, work without a written contract, or pay thousands of US dollars to resign, treat it as a labour complaint: Ministry of Labour, Brickdam, +592 226-6115.

Employers hiring into this boom should get PAYE and NIS right on day one. GRA still requires monthly Form 5 remittances by the 14th of the following month; a “contractor” label does not automatically take someone outside PAYE.

A one-week action list

  1. Create the Local Content Register account and submit employment registration.
  2. Download every open notice that matches your trade; diary the closing date.
  3. Register and upload a PDF résumé on jobs.gov.gy and GuyaneseJobs.com.
  4. Pick two contractor career portals and set job alerts for Guyana.
  5. If you are in East Berbice–Corentyne, look at GTTCI and shorebase/logistics roles, not only Georgetown offices.
  6. If you employ people, post the vacancy on GuyaneseJobs.com and the National Job Bank — both beat a Facebook blast that expires in 24 hours.

The 2026 local content plans are already approved. Uaru installation is already employing people. The gap is not “Guyana has no jobs”. The gap is applying in the wrong place, with the wrong paper, a week after the notice closed.

Job seekers: search Guyana jobs on GuyaneseJobs.com. Employers: post a vacancy and hire from people who are ready to work this month.

Sources

  • DPI, “Over 40 companies receive approval for 2026 local content plans”: https://dpi.gov.gy/over-40-companies-receive-approval-for-2026-local-content-plans/
  • DPI, “Local content loopholes closed… Min Bharrat”: https://dpi.gov.gy/local-content-loopholes-closed-opportunities-boosted-for-guyanese-min-bharrat/
  • Kaieteur News, “Govt. approves over 40 Local Content Annual Plans for 2026” (18 June 2026): https://kaieteurnewsonline.com/2026/06/18/govt-approves-over-40-local-content-annual-plans-for-2026/
  • Local Content Register: https://lcregister.petroleum.gov.gy/
  • Notices for Individual Employment: https://lcregister.petroleum.gov.gy/opportunities/notices-for-individual-employment/
  • Local Content Act 2021: https://lcregister.petroleum.gov.gy/documents/local-content-act-2021/
  • OilNOW, Uaru installation jobs (31 August 2026): https://oilnow.gy/featured/uaru-installation-activities-support-jobs-business-ahead-of-production/
  • ExxonMobil Guyana careers: https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/locations/guyana/careers-at-exxonmobil-guyana
  • Demerara Waves, Routledge baseline-study remarks (18 June 2026): https://demerarawaves.com/2026/06/18/exxonmobil-to-conduct-a-labour-survey-to-deal-with-labour-shortage/
  • National Job Bank: https://jobs.gov.gy/
  • Ministry of Labour (portal): https://portal.gov.gy/agencies/ministry-of-labour
  • GRA PAYE obligations: https://gra.gov.gy/employers-obligations-to-deduct-and-remit-paye/
  • Public/Police Service Commission careers: https://ppsc.gov.gy/careers/
  • Kaieteur News, GTTCI Port Mourant opening (16 February 2026): https://kaieteurnewsonline.com/2026/02/16/us120m-oil-gas-training-college-opens-in-port-mourant/
  • Ignite News, Judiciary warning on fake jobs (30 July 2026): https://ignitenews.com/2026/07/30/fake-jobs-online-scams-and-social-media-increasingly-used-by-human-traffickers-to-exploit-victims-judiciary-warns/