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ExxonMobil EIA for Liza One highly flawed
– Assesses only 6 of 250+ toxic chemicals from flaring
-reliability of results affected by weather, electricity woes
Kaieteur News- The effect on air quality by flaring offshore Guyana by ExxonMobil’s local subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) has not been studied as the company supposedly did not envision that such a circumstance would play out. In its environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the Liza Phase One project, the company employed a mechanism to measure the impact of this practice on air quality. Importantly, that exercise did not even measure 10 percent of the toxic chemicals released by flaring. Furthermore, the EIA notes that numerous challenges affected the study’s reliability.The issues mentioned therefore, render the EIA highly flawed in its measurement of air quality, leaving the public with no idea of the true effect of flaring on the environment.
Notes on the air quality measurement are found in Volume Two of the EIA, the technical appendices.
Flaring offshore Guyana at the Liza Destiny oil vessel
Page Five of the document which outlines the Air Quality Parameters, notes that the study only examined concentrations of six chemicals.
“The programme measured ambient concentrations of SO2 (Sulfur dioxide), H2S (Hydrogen sulfide), NO (Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Volatile organic compound (VOC), and Particulate Matter 10 (PM10),” the EIA states.
According to a special study conducted by the World Bank, flaring releases gases that are not only harmful to one’s health but also disastrous to the climate. The report 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.
Because EEPGL’s air quality study only measures the ambient concentration of six chemicals, it would be a flawed indication of the detriment of flaring to the quality of the air if it were presented as such. The six chemicals account for less than 2.5 percent of the toxic chemicals which pollute the air.
In addition, Page Nine of the Technical Appendices contains a section which speaks to Quality Control/Quality Assurance. The EIA states “Air monitoring on board a working research vessel introduces numerous challenges to obtaining reliable ambient air quality monitoring measurements.”
The EIA posits that these challenges are “Potential uncertainty regarding the location at which a measurement is made; Exposure to weather that may damage instruments or bias their measurements; Potential measurement bias due to impacts from on-board emission sources; and Reliability of electrical power with which to operate the monitoring instruments.”
The section went on to state that the monitoring programme’s equipment proved to be resilient, but that significant aberrations occurred, which include failure of the Carbon Monoxide (CO) sensor and malfunctioning of the Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) sensor.
With all the stated challenges to the monitoring process, which also lacked studies on the ambient concentration of more than 200 toxic chemicals released by flaring, ExxonMobil’s EIA succinctly presented that the results showed the monitored concentration of the air contaminants in the vicinity of the Liza Phase One area to be low.
Page 10, the Results page, states “In general, concentrations of the monitored air contaminants in the vicinity of the Liza Phase 1 area were found to be very low when compared with levels typically found in terrestrial environments, and with national and international ambient air quality standards.”
The company has flared over 13 billion cubic feet of gas offshore Guyana and to date, is still flaring at about 16 million cubic feet per day. The country awaits the reinstatement of ExxonMobil’s repaired gas compression equipment.
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