Exxon relies on decade-old data to justify low gas emissions

May 24, 2022 News

Gas-to-Energy project…

Kaieteur News – ExxonMobil Guyana has used data from 10 years ago to conclude that its part of the Gas-to-Energy project, that is the onshore and offshore pipelines together with the Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) Plant, will not be a large scale emitter of the dangerous greenhouse gases (GHG) that lead to climate change.

ERMs Guyana Programme Lead and Partner-in-Charge, Mr. Todd Hall

This was revealed during a recent consultation at the Umana Yana, in Georgetown, hosted by the oil company and its Consultant, Environmental Resources Management (ERM) that prepared the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the project.
In fact it was ERM’s Guyana Programme Lead and Partner-in-Charge, Mr. Todd Hall, who told citizens at the meeting that the emissions from the project have been rated as low. He explained, “With respect to climate change…the project is actually a relatively low greenhouse gas emitter. It will emit about 80 kilotonnes per year of what’s called green house gases, the gases that affect climate change.”
According to him, “That compares, for context, to about 4700 kilotonnes per year that Guyana as a whole emits and that’s based on data from about 10 years ago. That’s the most recent green house gas emission inventory for the country, so a relatively small 1.5 percent or so of the country’s emissions.”
In its Non-Technical Summary (NTS) of the project, the oil company said that the estimated annual GHG emissions from the Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) Plant alone will range from 65.7 to 80 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalents per year. This is poised to increase Guyana’s estimated GHG emissions by approximately 1.4 to 1.7 percent. Overall, ExxonMobil said that the project will emit between 0.00016 to 0.00026 percent of the predicted future global GHG emissions.
Even though Hall said the most recent data dates back to a decade ago, research conducted by this publication proved this not to be true. For instance, one website Knoema, an Eldridge business, which boasts of being the premier data platform and the most comprehensive source of global decision-making data in the world, includes data on Guyana’s emissions, stemming from the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacturing of cement for example. They include carbon dioxide produced during consumption of solid, liquid, and gas fuels and gas flaring.
According to that site, “In 2020, CO2 emissions per capita for Guyana was 1.92 tons of CO2 per capita. Though Guyana CO2 emissions per capita fluctuated substantially in recent years, it tended to increase through 1971-2020 period ending at 1.92 tons of CO2 per capita in 2020.”
Meanwhile, ourworldindata.org also cited emissions from Guyana, as recent as 2018. It estimated that Guyana emitted about 19.12 million tonnes of GHGs that year. https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions When this amount is converted to tonnes, it amounts to approximately 19,000 kilotonnes. This is more than four times the total GHGs estimated to have been released from Guyana 10 years ago.
Nevertheless, during the EIA consultation of the gas-to-energy project, the Consultant shared other details regarding the impacts to air quality, during the construction and operations phases.
Hall explained, “we ran a different computer model for operations; in other words, when the facility is operating on a continuous basis what are the predicted concentrations of pollutants that it will produce outside of the fence line of the facility and what we found is that this particular facility is a relatively low emitter across industrial facilities and the maximum concentration of any pollutant at the fence line is actually only about eight percent or about 12 times lower than a health based standard.”
In fact, he said that for most of the pollutants, the predicted concentrations is about one percent or less or about 100 times lower than the health based limits, which means there is a low significance of impacts to air quality.
“With respect to construction, the primary concern there is similar to noise, in the proximity of the construction work team, certain houses, again for about two kilometres of the 25 kilometres, the construction activity for the onshore pipeline will be near residential areas and there will be a concern, under the wrong conditions for dust concerns,” he added.
In Exxon’s Project Summary, it was outlined that air emissions resulting from the project have the potential to affect ambient air quality in the project area on a localised basis and to contribute to GHG emissions. The emissions will result from construction equipment and backup diesel-fired power generation; from operational point sources; non-routine, temporary flaring; pilot flare activities; plant emissions; fugitive emissions from construction or operations; non-routine, unplanned events.