New call for daily oil production data

Sep 19, 2022 News

– former EPA Head says ministry’s website not user-friendly

Kaieteur News – Former Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams has called on the government to release daily data on oil production even as he knocked the manner in which information being shared on website manned by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

A chart on the Ministry of Natural Resources portal displaying the number of barrels produced per day at the two current operations.

Adams said the website is not user-friendly and would baffle citizens who are now learning about the oil and gas sector. Dr. Adams, a Petroleum Engineer, said during an Alliance For Change (AFC) press conference on Friday that the information on the website- see link below- is not readable. https://petroleum.gov.gy/data-visualization.

He argued, “the data has not been updated since July 11, not to mention some of the sloppiness; if you go look at some of the graphs and they have got one thing at the title and something else at the short and it’s very, very user unfriendly.”

Dr. Adams continued, “I have gotten calls from even the press, even some of my friends saying how many people can read graphs.” To this end, the former EPA boss said the Ministry of Natural Resources should instead post the production data using figures rather than charts, so that anyone can interpret the level of offshore operations.

On Sunday, this newspaper could not ascertain when the last production report was posted as the portal was unavailable. The former agency head however insisted that the data was not being disclosed in a timely manner even though Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said during ‘The Glenn Lall Show’ last Tuesday evening that Guyana has access to real time production data.

“When the Vice President was confronted by (KN Publisher Mr. Glenn) Lall about real time monitoring (of costs), he said oh we can’t do real time monitoring because we are not co-managing but however we do real time monitoring on production data. Well if you are doing real time monitoring on production data, you have to be giving us the real time data on that website that you sent us…the data has not been updated since July 11,” Dr. Adams explained.

On August 22, after months of consistent requests from transparency activists, the Ministry of Natural Resources directed Kaieteur News to its website where oil production data was available. It was explained that the portal was launched in the first quarter of 2021 under the Petroleum Management Programme. This was not known to the media and other stakeholders.

Notably, the website offers data regarding the number of barrels produced at the Liza One and Liza Two operations in the Stabroek Block, as well as the daily reported injected gas, flared gas and gas used for fuel. It also gives an overview on the Brent Crude prices and the amount of water produced and injected.

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