Latest update November 5th, 2024 1:00 AM
Exxon likely to flare one billion cubic feet of gas by the time it gets faulty compressor’s diagnosis
By Mikaila Prince
Exxon flaring at its Liza Destiny operations
Kaieteur News – Country Manager of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge, revealed yesterday that the oil giant is currently flaring 16 million cubic feet of natural gas into the atmosphere per day. These details comes after Exxon, on January 29, had reported that a third stage gas compressor had failed, thereby causing it to increase flaring from its pilot levels.
At 16 million cubic feet per day, calculations by Kaieteur News show that in the 11 days that Exxon had increased its flaring, the United States (US) oil company has already flared 176 million cubic feet of natural gas.
What is further concerning is that Routledge, during yesterday’s virtual ExxonMobil press engagement, stated that it would take “approximately eight weeks” for the manufacturer of the compressor, MAN Turbo in Germany, to inspect the defective gas compressor. This would be executed to ascertain what the issues and complications are with the equipment.
However, within those eight weeks, Exxon, which boasts of its effective management of waste, will continue to flare 16 million cubic feet per day, thereby taking the total volume of toxic gas flared to, since January 29, to 1.072 billion cubic feet. This would increase the total volume of gas flared by Exxon since 2020 to 13.6 billion cubic feet. This number is equivalent to the removal of over 1.6 M acres of forest, the size of Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) and a small section of Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara).
When Exxon had first started flaring in December 2019, due to defective flash gas compressor, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the leadership of Dr. Vincent Adams, had slashed the oil company’s production by 60 percent. This meant that Exxon could have only produced 30,000 barrels of oil per day.
The numbers had been reduced to those low numbers, Dr. Adams had indicated, so that flaring can be kept between 12 million and 15 million cubic feet of gas per day.
Fast forward to September 2020, after it had been able to fix a part of its defective compressor, Exxon had increased their production to 105,000 barrels of oil per day. Information that had been supplied by the new Director of the EPA, Sharifah Razack, had indicated that the company flared 16.496 million standard cubic feet of gas per day – up from its previously publicized rate of 15 million cubic feet per day.
Then in mid December 2020, Exxon reported that it had managed to repair its flash gas compressor, thereby significantly cutting down its toxic flaring to pilot levels. This type of flaring is an industry practice, which flares a minimum volume of gas as to ensure safe operations.
However, this was short-lived as by January 13, 2021, Exxon had started reporting failures in its flaring system once more, which it had claimed were rectified. But exactly two weeks later on January 27, the oil giant began experiencing more failures in its gas system that it could not repair, which eventually resulted in Exxon increasing its flaring from pilot levels on January 29.
Dangers of flaring
Based on research, the flaring of gas is extremely damaging to the environment. A special study conducted by the World Bank notes that flaring releases more than 250 toxins, including cancer causing agents such as benzopyrene, benzene, carbon disulphide (CS2), carbonyl sulphide (COS), and toluene. It also releases metals such as mercury, arsenic, and chromium and nitrogen oxides.
Flaring is also hazardous to human health. Nigerian scientists, Omosivie Maduka and Charles Tobin-West, in a joint paper lodged with the US National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), had explained that flaring in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria has polluted the air and water, and precipitated the formation of acid rain. All of this, they said, has caused negative outcomes in the communities there, including chronic and recurrent respiratory diseases, abnormalities in the blood, increased susceptibility to certain diseases of the blood and others.
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