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Six days later, Exxon still mum on flaring
ExxonMobil’s Government and Public Affairs Advisor, Janelle Persaud.
Kaieteur News – The public awaits a meaningful update from ExxonMobil Guyana on the continuous pollution of the atmosphere via flaring at its operations.
Six days ago, ExxonMobil’s local subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) announced that there was a “technical” issue at the Liza Phase One producing operation. The report regarded an issue with a seal on the gas compressor on the Liza Destiny Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel. Calling the incident unfortunate, ExxonMobil said that it had to temporarily increase flaring above pilot levels in order to maintain safe operations.
This was déjà vu for many Guyanese; they had heard a very similar report in January last year. Following that report, the oil company went on to flare gas all year long, racking up a total flared volume well over 12 billion cubic feet of gas.
This time around, when ExxonMobil’s government and public affairs advisor, Janelle Persaud, sent the report to media operatives, they responded with pointed questions on the volume of gas being flared per day and about the rate of production of oil.
Six days later, there has been no answer to these questions from ExxonMobil, and no update from Persaud or anyone from the company.
ExxonMobil has not signalled an intention to hold a press conference, in order to field questions from the media and sufficiently inform the public about Exxon’s pollution of the atmosphere.
The only statement from any Exxon executive that the public was left to contend with was the country President, Alistair Routledge, saying “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.”
Similar commitments were made last year, followed by broken deadlines.
The public is awash with concern that ExxonMobil will go on to flare another 12 billion cubic feet of gas this year. Even the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has called on the government to ensure the oil company is held accountable.
However, the Government has indicated that there will be no penalty for Exxon’s flaring and that it will be allowed to produce with no government-mandated curtailments. This means, if the status quo persists, ExxonMobil will quickly flare more gas in 2021 than it did last year.
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