Prequalified bidders to submit proposals within two months – Pres. Ali

May 29, 2022 News

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Gas-to-energy project…

By Renay Sambach

Kaieteur News – Within the next two weeks the Government of Guyana (GoG) will be issuing the Request For Proposals (RFP) for the Natural Gas fired power plant and the Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) plant, which is an aspect of the Gas-to-Energy (GTE) project. This was announced by President Irfaan Ali, during his Independence Day speech on Wednesday night.

The President in that address said, “…we have embarked on our plan to bring 500 megawatts of new generating capacity; within two weeks, the Request For Proposals will be issued to the pre-qualified bidders, within two months, thereafter, we expect specific proposals to be submitted and to initiate the process to award the contract. By the end of this term, we’ll be generating 250 to 300 megawatts of power, powered by natural gas.”
It was Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo who had disclosed that nine companies had been pre-qualified for the construction of the gas-fired power plant and the NGL plant components of the project.
“A public process has been gone through. They have now pre-qualified, I think, nine companies to bid for the NGL facility and the gas power plant. We are working now, since the two have been combined because we believe that the synergy will save us, and therefore, it required a bit more work at preparing the Request For Proposal. We’re hoping by the end of May that Request For Proposal will go out to the nine pre-qualified companies,” Jagdeo had stated.
ExxonMobil’s subsidiary—Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) – has recently submitted for approval its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for the GTE project to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for approval.

As such, the public will now be provided with a 60-day period to register any concerns it may have with any of the provisions contained in the three-volume EIA submitted to the EPA.
Among the glaring admissions in that document is the fact that in addition to the onshore and offshore pipeline to be constructed by that company, said to be to the tune of some US$900M, the oil giant will also be taking on the responsibility of constructing the NGL plant.
Included in the 5,906 pages document submitted to the EPA, ExxonMobil is looking to begin construction of a gas plant aspect of the project as early as August this year as long as permission is granted by the State Agency.
This publication had reported that Exxon, had revealed that the GTE project that will be based at Wales in Region Three on approximately 150 acres of land, will cost way more than the initial US$900M.
It was explained in the EIA that the project will use natural gas produced from the Liza One and Two projects in the Stabroek Block, and transport that resource via offshore and onshore pipeline networks to a natural gas power plant. The oil company had noted that the Government of Guyana will be handling the construction of the power plant, which is therefore subjected to a separate environmental authorisation process.
Notably, Kaieteur News had reported that the plant is not included in the EIA, with the exception that it is considered as part of the cumulative impact assessment.
Expounding further, EEPGL said the project will involve capturing associated gas produced from crude oil production operations on the Liza Phase 1 (Destiny) and Liza Phase 2 (Unity) Floating, Production, Storage, and Offloading (FPSO) vessels, transporting approximately 50 million standard cubic feet per day of rich gas via a subsea pipeline and then to an onshore pipeline to a natural gas liquids (NGL) processing plant (NGL Plant), treating the gas to remove NGLs (i.e., propane, butane, and pentanes+) for sale to third parties, and ultimately delivering dry gas meeting government specifications for use at the power plant.
On Wednesday night, the President also disclosed, “we will be creating the condition to supply to bring gas three times more than our national demand and we will be in a position to develop a whole range of other derived liquids that it can monetised.”
President Ali noted that the design of the pipeline caters for future additional supply of gas which will allow the project to deliver a wide range of value-added activities which may include manufacturing and industrial development.
The combined offshore and onshore pipeline system is targeted to be ready to deliver rich gas by end of 2024, and the NGL Plant is targeted to be operational by mid-2025.
The GTE project has a planned life cycle of at least 25 years and is expected to employ up to 800 workers at peak during the Construction stage, approximately 40 full-time equivalents workers during the Operations stage, and approximately 50 workers during the Decommissioning stage.

 

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