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Guyana and Suriname should partner to bring gas to shore – Suriname Oil Boss
CEO of Suriname’s Staatsolie, Rudolf Elias.
Kaieteur News – Rudolf Elias, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director of Suriname’s state oil company Staatsolie, has posited that Guyana and Suriname should work together with the objective of bringing its natural gas to shore.
Elias shared these and other critical points during his debut appearance on Kaieteur Radio’s Guyana’s Oil & You, on January 4.
The Suriname Oil Boss reminded that oil companies around the world are not interested in selling the natural gas. Instead those companies, he said, propose that they set up the necessary infrastructure to bring the gas to shore for cheaper and cleaner electrical consumption.
With the aim of capitalizing and prudently managing this type of project, Elias posited that Guyana and Suriname should be interested in partnering to bring the natural gas to shore, while noting that both countries “cannot force” the oil companies to do the same on a commercial basis.
Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.
He went on to explain, “We should look at ways how we can explore and develop the gas that is offshore Suriname and Guyana together and bring it onshore in order to build industries, clean industries. And gas is an awful lot cleaner than oil, so they build clean energy producers together for the future of both countries and then we will get a lot of more sustainable development in businesses.”
Meanwhile, Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, had said last Tuesday that the government will conduct four studies into the proposed gas-to-shore project before it moves to implement its construction plans. This, the VP had said, while noting that there have been adverse comments in the press that the government may be rushing forward without ensuring the project’s feasibility.
The project would utilize associated gas from ExxonMobil’s Liza Phase One project, which has been in operation since December 2019. ExxonMobil’s Guyana President, Alistair Routledge, has said that the company can bring as much as 50 million cubic feet of gas to shore per day, more than Guyana needs.
The government has received calls from sections of the media and transparency advocates to prove the economic soundness of the project, by releasing studies on its feasibility.
“So several studies are in the process of being contracted,” he said during a press conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. “There is a geophysical study, a geotechnical study, a lidar study, and an environmental impact study.”
The results of those studies, which he said, should have been done since 2016 under the David Granger administration, are expected to inform the design of the pipeline. The Vice President said that the pipeline construction is expected to last 18-24 months, which is why the government has set a target of mid to end of 2023. He considers this a realistic projection. The government hasn’t yet decided where the pipeline will terminate but when it does, it will go to tender for the construction of the power plant.
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