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Inspection being done to determine whether gas compressor seal needs replacement – EPA
Kaieteur News – Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Sharifah Razack, recently revealed to Kaieteur News that an inspection is being done on the internal mechanical seal on the Flash Gas Compressor (Stage 3), with aims of determining whether the defective seal needs to be reseated or replaced.
This news comes on the heels of ExxonMobil’s increased flaring from pilot levels at their Liza Destiny operations due to the defective seal.
When this publication spoke to Razack, she, at the time, did not reveal when the inspection had commenced and when it was scheduled for completion, but only that the examination was being conducted onboard the Liza Destiny Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel.
The Director had also weighed in that in the event of the seal needing replacement, backup equipment is already in Guyana.
Previously, Kaieteur News had reached out to Razack to ascertain what steps the EPA would be putting in place to ensure that design flaw in the Liza Destiny Environmental Permit, as relates to defective equipment, is not present in the Liza Two and Payara developments.
To this the Director had 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 had also previously shared 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.
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