Guyana Approves a US$1.65 Billion Budget and Widens Its Energy Bet With Solar and a Trinidad Gas Partner

GUYANA · ECONOMY

Guyana has approved a US$1.65 billion budget for fiscal 2027, according to officials, while seeking financing for a solar build-out that reaches into Suriname and picking Trinidad’s Phoenix Park Gas Processors for a project at home.

What the new Guyana budget locks in

Georgetown has approved a fiscal 2027 budget of US$1.65 billion, according to officials familiar with the vote. It extends the biggest public spending run in the country’s history.

The current 2026 budget already stands at GY$1.558 trillion (about US$7.48 billion). Finance Minister Ashni Singh tabled it on 13 February, and the National Assembly approved it a day later.

That package, themed “Putting People First”, is 12.7 percent larger than the year before. It was the first full Guyana budget since the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic won a landslide in September 2025. No previous Guyana budget has leaned so heavily on petroleum.

In June the government came back for more. It tabled a supplementary request of GY$54.8 billion (about US$262 million), including GY$3 billion (about US$14 million) for the ailing Guyana Sugar Corporation.

There is relief for households too. The monthly income-tax threshold rose to GY$140,000 (about US$669), removing 5,000 people from the tax net.

Oil pays for almost everything

The money behind all of this is crude. Budget documents project US$2.4 billion in profit oil and US$375 million in royalties from the ExxonMobil-operated Stabroek Block this year.

Withdrawals from the Natural Resource Fund, Guyana’s sovereign oil fund, climb from US$2.37 billion in 2026 to US$2.62 billion in 2027. Official projections see them reaching US$4.33 billion by 2029.

Even so, the fund itself keeps growing. Forecasts put its balance near US$11.7 billion over the same period, because revenue arrives faster than the state can spend it.

The growth figures explain why investors watch Georgetown’s finances so closely. Gross domestic product grew 19.3 percent in 2025, and the non-oil economy expanded 14.3 percent.

For context, Guyana is a country of roughly 800,000 people on South America’s Caribbean coast. Measured per person, few governments anywhere now spend like this one.

Solar: eight farms first, Suriname next

The energy piece of the story is solar. Guyana is building eight utility-scale solar farms with 33 megawatts of panels and 34 megawatt-hours of battery storage under its GUYSOL programme.

GUYSOL, the Guyana Utility-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Programme, is paid for with Norwegian forest-protection money. The investment is put at US$83 million, channelled through the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund.

Progress is real but incomplete. Five of the eight farms were operational by early 2026, with 18 megawatts installed, or 55 percent of the target.

The sites sit in Linden, on the Essequibo Coast and in Berbice. Completion of the full programme is scheduled for August 2027.

Georgetown now wants to go bigger. Officials say the government is seeking financing for a wider solar build-out that would extend across the border into Suriname, Guyana’s Dutch-speaking neighbour.

The details of that plan remain thin. No lender, cost figure or timetable has been published for the cross-border phase.

Trinidad’s PPGPL and the gas bet

The third thread is gas. Trinidad and Tobago’s Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited, known as PPGPL, has been selected for a Guyana project, according to people familiar with the selection.

PPGPL is one of the Caribbean’s largest natural-gas processors. It operates at Point Lisas, Trinidad’s industrial estate, and is tied to the state through the National Gas Company.

The selection fits Guyana’s gas-to-energy project at Wales, on the west bank of the Demerara River. That scheme pipes associated gas from the offshore oil fields ashore to generate cheaper electricity.

Power is Guyana’s oldest economic complaint. Electricity is expensive, outages are common, and businesses cite both as a brake on growth outside the oil sector.

More than GY$10 billion (about US$48 million) was allocated to the gas-to-energy project in the 2026 Guyana budget, according to BNamericas. The Guyana budget for 2027 keeps energy near the top of the list, according to officials. Officials say it remains on track for completion by the end of the year.

What to watch from here

The first test is financing. A solar plan spanning two countries needs a named lender, and none has stepped forward publicly.

The second is the build itself. GUYSOL must move from 55 percent complete to fully operational by August 2027.

The third is scope. What exactly PPGPL will do in Guyana, and for how much, has not been spelled out.

For foreigners watching the Caribbean, the pattern inside this Guyana budget is what matters. An oil-rich state is spending fast while trying to buy itself a post-oil energy system.

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