Govt forges ahead with gas-to-shore project despite objections

Jun 24, 2022 News

– Jagdeo says proposals for NGL, power plants to be in next month

Kaieteur News – By the end of July, the nine prequalified bidders for the Natural Gas fired power plant and the Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) plant are expected to submit their proposals to the Government of Guyana (GoG).

Vice President (VP), Bharrat Jagdeo.

The gas-fired power plant and the NGL plant are part of the US-multibillion Gas-to-Energy (GTE) project. The GTE project will encompass three major aspects, that is, the pipeline to transport the gas to Wales, West Bank Demerara, the NGL facility that will treat and separate the gas and the power plant to generate the electricity. This publication had reported that Guyanese have been told that the pipeline aspect, which is being pursued by US oil major ExxonMobil’s subsidiary—Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), will cost around US$1.3 billion. Even this is expected to increase when Exxon closes critical contracts for same.
During one of his recent press conferences, Vice President (VP), Bharrat Jagdeo disclosed that the prequalified bidders have already received the Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for the power plant and the NGL facility. He said: “we’re about to wrap up the negotiations for the gas-to-energy project. So, the Requests for Proposals have gone to the nine prequalified companies. By the end of July we will have the proposals from them. The nine prequalified companies. That is to build the power plant and the NGL facility.”
It was VP who had disclosed that companies had been prequalified 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,” Jagdeo had stated.

An artist’s impression of a Natural Gas Plant (Photo credit: EEPGL).

For his part, President Irfaan Ali, had said, “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.”
Notably, EEPGL has already 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 have 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. This publication had reported that 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.
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.
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.