Latest update February 2nd, 2025 8:30 AM
Apr 02, 2021 News
…as T&T expert points to need for beefed-up security for pipeline
Kaieteur News – Landing a natural gas pipeline from Guyana’s oil fields more than 120 miles offshore to the former Wales Sugar Estate will require beefed up security and increased oversight by a regulatory body, still to be established in Guyana.
This is since the matter of Natural Gas could very well become a matter of national security for the country’s energy infrastructure stemming from government plans to set up a power generation plant to supply the national grid with electricity using natural gas, according to Former Energy Minister of neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago, Kevin Ramnarine. The oil sector expert was on Monday discussing ramifications of the proposed gas to shore project in Guyana during an online webinar hosted by Oil NOW.
Ramnarine told the moderator, Chris Chapwanya, that the matter of the security of the country’s energy infrastructure would become a matter of national security because “as the energy infrastructure grows, you will always have the risk of people who may want to interfere…That is a very big issue in Nigeria.”
Reflecting on his homeland’s experience, Ramnarine noted, “given that all electricity in Trinidad comes from natural gas, it means therefore, that the natural gas industry in Trinidad and Tobago is not only an economic priority, it’s also a national security priority.”
He explained, “That is also one of the reasons why the Minster of Energy in Trinidad sits on the National Security Council; he is not there to give his opinion about bandits and criminals breaking in; he is there because of the strategic value of gas infrastructure and energy infrastructure.”
According to Ramnarine, “in our country, the authorities, the army and so on patrol the oil and gas pipelines routes in order to ensure nobody is compromising it.”
This activity, he said, is “part of the regulatory oversight of natural gas infrastructure too is security of those assets, and increasingly, that is going to become an issue for Guyana.”
He was adamant “you can’t just leave the infrastructure unattended, because you never know that there is a risk of somebody who may want to do some mischief right? So part of the regulatory oversight, of energy infrastructure is national security”
According to the T&T expert, “I would think for example that Guyana now, given that your economic livelihood is becoming more and more offshore, you would want greater and greater assets available to the coast guard so that they can monitor what is happening off shore and so on.”
He posited that this does not necessarily relate to protection from nefarious activities since “sometimes there may be accidents and so on. We have had incidents were rogue barges, I mean there are barges in the sea that float around the world. I didn’t know that.”
He suggested that in some cases the Guyana Coast Guard could very likely have to be called in to address such matters.
“So in terms of regulatory oversight, the security, the security aspect, is important.”
This, he said, is in addition to the management of the industry through the granting of licences for pipelines and so on “that is done in tandem with your planning division and your state lands division and so on… So, it’s quite a huge task which will be presented to the regulator which I assume, eventually would be the Petroleum Commission.”
Speaking to additional measures that would need to be put in place by the Guyanese authorities in order to land the gas to shore, would be how the industry is accounted for from a regulatory point of view in that law.
This, he speculated would fall under the still to be established Petroleum Commission “which is going to be set up in Guyana”
According to Ramnarine, once the Bill would have to be laid in Parliament, debated and passed and so on, “the petroleum commission would have the responsibility of regulatory oversight of natural gas.”
He observed that “with regard to gas, the oversight, the regulatory oversight is pretty much the same as oil” and pointed to activities such as “metering (which) would be something that would be under the control of the Petroleum Commission.”
He alluded also to “things like measuring the quantity of natural gas transmitted and the quality of natural gas.”
Ramnarine explained that there needs to be a determination of the calorific value of the gas, which is landed on shore and deals with the energy that can be generated from proportional units of natural gas and its inherent value.
“So all those things would have to be determined by the regulator,” observed Ramnarine.
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