Exxon’s flaring since December equivalent to removal of 123,000 more acres of forest

Mar 21, 2021 News

By Kemol King

ExxonMobil flaring at the Liza Destiny.

Forests flanking Rewa River, North Rupununi (Photo: REEL Guyana)

Kaieteur News – ExxonMobil’s local subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), has been flaring above pilot levels since late January at its Liza Phase One operation, where it is producing about 120,000 barrels of oil per day. This period of flaring is so environmentally destructive that it is equivalent to the removal of 123,000 acres of forests.
The carbon capturing properties of Guyana’s forests are of immense value to the world, as countries move to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Pact. Guyana, by virtue of its vast forests, is a carbon sink. This means it captures more carbon than it emits. ExxonMobil’s flaring runs counter to the forests’ impact, emitting a significant amount of carbon, and other toxic chemicals.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ExxonMobil flared 13.262 billion cubic feet of gas at Liza Phase One as of March 15, 2021. This includes all gas flared there since the start of oil production. The company has encountered equipment defects several times. It had flared gas almost all year last year since starting production, and only managed a temporary fix in December 2020. By then, it had already flared 12.429 billion cubic feet of gas.
Since then, it encountered a malfunction on January 13, 2021. It also encountered a malfunction later, about January 27, which resulted in above pilot flaring, which is ongoing. Between the return to pilot flaring levels in December and March 15 this year, EEPGL flared more than 833 million more cubic feet of gas.
EPA Director, Sharifah Razack, told Kaieteur News that the volume flared on March 15 was 15.8 million cubic feet of gas. The average daily rate of flaring, according to EEPGL President, Alistair Routledge, is 16 million cubic feet of gas, at nameplate production levels. That means EEPGL flared about 90 million more cubic feet of gas from March 15 to the current date, and 13.352 billion cubic feet of gas since the start of production at the Liza Phase One operation.
Conservationist, Annette Arjoon-Martins, had said that the flaring of 15 million cubic feet of gas equates to the removal of 2,000 acres of forests. By December, when ExxonMobil achieved a temporary fix on its equipment, it had already committed so much environmental destruction that 1.657 million acres of forests could have been destroyed and it would have the same effect. By today, that damage has increased to equate to the environmental destruction of 1.78 million acres of forests.
EEPGL had sent its defective equipment to the MAN Energy Workshop in Germany for repairs. The equipment is back offshore at the Liza Phase One operation, where reinstallation progresses. Reinstallation has taken days thus far. EEPGL Government and Public Affairs Advisor, Janelle Persaud, said in an operational update that ExxonMobil is taking special care to “maneuver these large pieces of equipment.”

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