Guyana is fast becoming a regional oil powerhouse, and the country’s vice president Bharrat Jagdeo thinks natural gas is the next step for the small nation at the northern tip of South America.

Jagdeo spoke during CERAWeek by S&P Global in Houston on Monday.

“The gas to energy program is going to start producing by 2024,” he told CERAWeek Chairman Daniel Yergin. Natural gas for a power plant would come from the offshore Stabroek block, where some 11 billion boe have been discovered since 2015. ExxonMobil is building a 141-mile offshore natural gas pipeline for the power plant in the capital city of Georgetown.

Jagdeo said the offshore resource also has as much as 17 Tcf of associated natural gas, and the power plant was a first step. “We are having a conversation to...