New EPA Head looks to enforce provisions in Liza 1 permit to resolve flaring

Feb 03, 2021 News

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By Mikaila Prince

Kaieteur News – With aims of resolving the flaring that is currently ongoing offshore Guyana by ExxonMobil, the newly appointed Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Sharifah Razack, is looking to enforce provisions in the Liza One Environmental Permit in future developments.
The provision Razack was referring to, is Article 3.13 in the Liza 1 Environmental Permit, which makes it explicitly clear that Exxon must have spare equipment available to cater for any sudden malfunctions.
In verbatim, this provision articulates that, “Efforts should be made to prevent equipment breakdowns and plant upsets, which could result in flaring and provisions should be made for equipment sparing and plant turn-down protocols where practical.”
However, the provision is ambiguous as it does not definitively state that the oil company “must” have spare equipment on hand.
Kaieteur News reached out to Razack on this matter, reminding her of the increased flaring that Exxon had reported on last Friday, due to their defective gas compressor. Against this backdrop, Kaieteur News asked the Director what steps the EPA would be putting in place to ensure that this design flaw is not present in the Liza Two and Payara developments.
To this the Director indicated, “To avoid excess flaring by future offshore oil production projects, the EPA will require that critical spare parts stocks are maintained in-country by [Exxon’s subsidiary] Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) and will also require that repair capabilities is sourced closer to Guyana.”
As it relates to the recently reported amount of gas flared by Exxon, Razack revealed that the total volume of gas flared since operations commenced was 12.454 billion standard cubic feet and 12.521billion standard cubic feet at December 31, 2020 and January 28, 2021 respectively.
Calculations show that between the months of December 31 and January 28, Exxon flared 67 million cubic feet of natural gas, thereby translating to 2.3 million cubic feet of natural gas being burned each day. However, this was the period when Exxon was conducting just pilot flaring at their operations. This type of flaring is an industry standard and acts as a safety mechanism in the event of a failure in the reinjection of the natural gas.
Exxon – which touts its effective management of waste – announced on January 29 that it had increased their flaring from these pilot levels. It is unclear how much gas the company had flared from the day of that announcement to date, since Razack did not share those figures.
Notably, in late 2020, when Exxon was just producing about 80,000 to 90,000 barrels per day, the super major had been flaring 12 to 15 million cubic feet of toxic, cancer-carrying agents into the atmosphere. These numbers had increased to 16 million cubic feet in October when the oil company had ramped up flaring, as data from the EPA had shown.
Now that Exxon is producing at its full capacity of 120,000 barrels per day, it is safe to say that amount of gas being flared each day has significantly risen from 16 million cubic feet per day.
Meanwhile, the former Director of the EPA, Dr. Vincent Adams, had told Kaieteur News last week that Exxon should explain why this type of equipment failure is only occurring in Guyana, when Guyana is not their first operation or experience in the oil industry.
He had stated that these types of disruptions are easily avoidable and cannot be blamed on the manufacturer, especially when it comes to brand new equipment. Dr Adams had reminded that Exxon is aware that it owns the responsibility to ensure manufacturing is done in full accord with the design specifications, through a rigorous Quality Assurance/Quality Control Plan, which they have to oversee.
The EPA had emphasized requirements to Exxon several times, Dr. Adams had recalled, even though this should have been second nature for a company of this stature.
“They cannot wait until the equipment arrives to figure out that the wires are aligned incorrectly, or the seals are made of the wrong material, when they have done this numerous times before. Why is Guyana different!” Dr Adams had admonished.
In light of the foregoing, the former EPA Head had indicated that the Government must decide whether Exxon’s performance to date merits its trust to protect the health, environment and wellbeing of the Guyanese people.
“And let me add that just a slap on the wrist [will be the fine] for the excess flaring. This is a joke, because this will only be a minuscule cost [when compared to] their business [earnings].”
Dr. Adams had indicated that it is his hope that this unfortunate event will again highlight the urgency for the government to provide the resources to properly equip the EPA with the necessary capacity for the oversight of these operations, including 24/7 on site presence and investment in training and recruitment of specialized requisite skills, which are all already incorporated in a plan developed between the EPA, Department of Energy (DoE) and the World Bank, he added.

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