Infrastructure and transport costs are very high compared to those of similar operations elsewhere. In heavy clay soils on the concession, almost no logs are harvested during periods of heavy rain, when bottlenecks form around the trucking from the log landings to the log pond. Logs must be transported a further 300 miles by barge from the concession at Port Kaituma to the mill near Georgetown, often amid delays. The company has had to train the workforce of around 1,500 from scratch. Even after three years of training and the selection of more productive employees, worker productivity, according to the company, is still lower than that of comparable workers in Malaysia, and rates of waste are higher.
Efficiency is, however, improving.
On average, around 40 percent of the high-cost equipment is therefore idle at any one time. In addition spare parts are not available in Guyana, so 10,000 lines of spares must be kept on the concession. Labor disputes have also been costly and sometimes lengthy in the past, though recent changes in management style are expected to reduce this. On the other hand, Guyana offers certain comparative advantages over other places.