By: Amar Persaud
Blue Water Shipping, a global provider of all logistics services in modern supply chain management, will soon be launching a training academy which will see two Guyanese being among the first inductees.
This was revealed by Regional Director of the America’s Regional Projects at Blue Water Shipping, Brent Patterson, during a panel discussion at the recently concluded International Energy Conference and Expo 2022 hosted by Guyana last month.
“We are launching the Blue Water Academy globally this year. Two of our first inductees will be from Guyana…they will sit here in the office for the first year, go Denmark every two weeks per quarter for training, come back and during the second year be stationed abroad for one year,” Patterson explained.
These persons could be stationed at the company’s operations in Singapore, Dubai, Aberdeen, Amsterdam, Denmark, Houston, Rio or Sau Paulo, Patterson further noted.
“They will then come back to Guyana with that knowledge. Not only the knowledge for handling the operations but understanding how the oil and gas in the renewables’ world works, the cultures, the expectations, so that they can bring that back here and share it with our young recruits and share the knowledge they’ve gained to some of the more experienced professional that we have in our staff here,” Patterson revealed.
Blue Water is represented with more than 60 offices worldwide including Guyana. In fact, last month, Blue Water expanded its presence here with its acquisition of the Guyana-based Falcon Logistics.
“The acquisition of Falcon Logistics is a very exciting event in the world of Blue Water. It is yet another substantial commitment in the Caribbean region, and we are pleased to welcome more than 40 new colleagues in Guyana to the Blue Water family,” Thomas Bek, COO, Energy, Port & Projects, Blue Water had noted.
Patterson expressed similar sentiments, noting too that the company is supportive of the country’s local content legislation.
“The right way, the sustainable way to enter a market is to invest in local talent,” he affirmed.
“We’ve been in this [Guyana’s] market for roughly six years, we basically took a copy and paste version from our work in Azerbaijan back in 1996. There, today, we are the largest locally owned broker freight for order transportation in Bacu,” the company rep explained.
In recent years, Blue Water has strengthened and expanded its activities in Guyana and the Caribbean Region. Blue Water handles large volumes of cargo for the oil and gas sector into Guyana and with the acquisition of Falcon, the company has expanded the range of services to include shore base, warehousing, trucking, laydown management, heavy haulage and lifting project-related business into and out of Georgetown.
Founded in 2013, Falcon is a 100% Guyanese employee company based on strong values and supporting the oil and gas sector in the region. Under the structure of the acquisition, Blue Water Guyana will remain majority Guyanese owned, maintaining full compliance with local content law.
