Guyana Plans ‘Norway on Steroids’ to Avoid Oil’s Resource Curse

Construction workers at a site where a prefabricated school is being built in Georgetown. Photo by Yancey Haywood /Photographer: Yancey Haywood/Blo

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(Bloomberg) — Oil-rich Guyana is spending so heavily and quickly on diversifying its economy that it’s on the cusp of becoming a “Norway on steroids,” according to President Irfaan Ali. 

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The South American nation, where Exxon Mobil Corp. discovered oil in 2015, has quadrupled its national budget over the last five years to fund new roads, bridges, schools and power generation as well as cash handouts to citizens. It’s part of an aggressive — and potentially high risk — plan to use revenue from Exxon-operated offshore projects to reduce dependence on crude as quickly as possible. 

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“For 25 years Norway used all of its resources to build out the systems, the infrastructure, and the investment in human capital and technology to be where they are,” Ali said during an interview at the Guyana Energy Conference in Georgetown on Wednesday. “If you look at where we are today and the type of investment we have made in terms of education, technology, I think we are Norway on steroids.”

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Previously among the poorest countries in the Americas, Guyana has increased its gross domestic product five-fold since Exxon began pumping crude from its vast discoveries in 2019. With less than 1 million people, it recently became the world’s biggest oil producer per capita. Other oil-rich countries like Venezuela, Nigeria and Angola have shown that a sudden increase in commodity wealth can spur inflation and corruption while crowding out other economic sectors, a phenomenon known as the resource curse. 

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Ali, who won a second five-year term in 2025, wants to avoid that through a multi-pronged spending plan to develop non-oil sectors. He’s targeting agriculture and mining as industries where Guyana could grow into producing higher-value products like packaged food and aluminum rather than the raw materials it has sold in the past. 

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The president also wants to bring natural gas onshore from the Exxon-operated oil fields to be used in power generation and manufacturing while also transforming Guyana into a regional hub for data centers and eco-tourism. 

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“We have to work on all of these pillars and platforms at the same time because we are behind time,” said Ali, 45. “We have to have economic diversification at a scale and speed that would allow us to de-risk other sectors and have the maximum multiplier effect on the economy.”

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The changes in the capital city Georgetown are palpable. 

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A towering, 1.6-mile (2.7 kilometer) cantilever bridge recently opened over the Demerara River to link the country’s east and west regions. Cranes tower over the city building new hotels and retail outlets. Construction vehicles and diggers barrel around narrow streets past wooden Colonial-era buildings. 

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Oil field service yards filled with heavy equipment under gleaming white lights have replaced palm groves. Venezuelan and Cuban immigrants are flocking in to fill job vacancies, especially in construction.