Flaring at Liza well to increase as ship’s gas compressor malfunctions again

Jan 30, 2021 News

Flaring at the Liza Destiny FPSO

Kaieteur News – Flaring at ExxonMobil’s Liza Destiny FPSO will increase above pilot levels after a technical issue with the ship’s gas compressor was encountered. This was reported yesterday by the oil giant’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL).
In an operations update, ExxonMobil said that the issue relates to the seal on the gas compressor. It said that malfunction will cause a temporarily increase in flaring in order to maintain safe operations.

ExxonMobil’s Public and Government Affairs Advisor, Janelle Persaud

Commenting on the matter, Alistair Routledge, President of ExxonMobil Guyana said, “We are disappointed that this unexpected issue has occurred and we’re working diligently with the vessel’s owner and the equipment vendor to understand and fix the issue as quickly as possible.”
The statement noted too that government authorities have been informed and regular updates will be provided.
Questions were posed to Exxon’s Public and Government Affairs Advisor, Janelle Persaud, by Kaieteur News and other media entities as to whether the temporary increase in flaring will exceed 15 million cubic feet per day and whether production will be at a slower pace.
In response, Persaud stated that later updates will be provided.
It was only last year December that the company reported that it had successfully commissioned the gas injection system, which was fixed months after malfunctioning. That state of affairs had resulted in over one billion cubic feet of gas being flared along with the release of toxic chemicals.
Exxon was only meant to briefly flare gas at project start-up in late December 2019 to test and fully commission the gas compression and injection systems at the site.
However, the company would end up flaring gas way longer than expected, for more than a year in fact.
According to an Environment Protection Agency (EPA) brief, ExxonMobil had said that the third stage-flash gas compressor and suction silencer had been sent for repairs in Germany and were returned to the Liza Destiny FPSO in late October, 2020.
The EPA had said that same was being reinstalled and was expected to restart functioning in mid-November. Exxon, according to the November update, had expected the equipment to take one to two weeks of testing to confirm that the repairs and modifications worked.
Notably, at the end of October, the company had flared more than 16 million cubic feet of natural gas, thereby making Guyana one of the top five countries in the world for volume flared per year, per capita.