ExxonM refuses questions from K/News at public consultations on sixth project

Feb 05, 2023 News

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…after reporter flags “insulting” response given by Projects Manager

Kaieteur News – As ExxonMobil Guyana continues consultations across the country to hear the public’s concerns on the sixth offshore oil project planned in the Stabroek Block, Kaieteur News was denied the opportunity to ask questions, after pointing out that an earlier response to a question was “insulting”.

On Friday, February 3, 2023 the oil company hosted its fifth public scoping meeting at the Leonora Technical Institute in Region Three where an audience of mostly students attended.

Briefing the students and about five other citizens, Projects Manager for ExxonMobil Guyana, Anthony Jackson went into detail about the planned offshore activities. Also present were the Consultant group, Environmental Resources Management (ERM) and officers from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

After utilizing about one and a half hours of the planned two hour session, Jackson then turned the microphone over to the moderator, Mr. Alex Graham to open the floor for questions.

The hand of former University of Guyana (UG) Lecturer, Mr. Alfred Bhulai was first in the air. He was told by Graham that ExxonMobil will first take questions from the students and would return to his query.

Once allowed the opportunity, Mr. Bhulai enquired about the Gas to Oil Ratio, a matter he had raised during the last consultation for the fifth oil project, Uaru+. Bhulai’s question was again not answered on Friday. He was told by Jackson that the two would have a chat upon the completion of the session there.

After the session ended, Bhulai told this newspaper, “Anthony Jackson refused to give me even the average Gas to Oil Ratio (GOR).”

Notably, another gentleman who stated his name and identified himself as an instructor at the Leonora Technical Institute asked the Exxon representative if the operations from the sixth project are likely to impact marine life, especially fish.

In his response, Jackson explained, “the water depth that you have and the depths that we are (carrying out our operations), if you have ever looked at National Geographic or Discovery Channel, when they go deep sea and they got to put the lights on to see down there, the type of fish that you encounter at those depths, one: it is very sparse and two: are not the type of fish you and I would eat. In fact when you bring those fish to the surface they often disintegrate…so the activities at the bottom of the ocean where the water-depth is deep my personal thought is that it’s not gonna have that much impact.”

He said the emissions will be studied during the conduct of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to assess the air quality and likely impacts.

Jackson craftily glossed over the thousands of barrels of harmful toxic waste that is dumped overboard into the sea water every day during operations offshore. These include dumping of produced water, sewage and other chemicals- which must be treated, but there are no ways of verifying this in the absence of environmental officers on board the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel.

In its most recent EIA for the Uaru project, Exxon made it clear that it plans to dump more than a million barrels of toxic, oily chemicals overboard daily during the life of the Uaru project, estimated at some 20 years.

According to the study, about 300,000 barrels per day (BPD) of produced water, including oil and grease; residual production and water treatment chemicals, among others will be dumped overboard from the project.

About 2,264,332 per day of cooling water will also be thrown overboard.

Bilge water from the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, which refers to a mixture of water, oily fluids, lubricants, cleaning fluids, and other similar wastes, will also be discharged into the local waters. According to the document 1,800 BPD of this toxic waste will be dumped.

Cognizant of this, a senior journalist attached to Kaieteur News signaled that she would like to ask a question. After being handed the microphone, she said it was apposite to make a quick comment on the response given by Jackson to the question on impacts to fish from Exxon’s operations.

She said, “While you were responding to a gentleman’s question, I find it just on the border of insulting because you sort of drifted from what the gentleman asked- about impacts to marine life- and you were speaking about the operations on the sea bed but I think you missed the point and it was sort of misleading to the young folks in the room who may not be aware of what some of the emissions are in terms of waste.”

The journalist explained that there is dumping of produced water among others that can affect marine life but were not listed to the students in the room who may not know that the impacts would not be limited to the seafloor.

The moderator, Alex Graham then requested that the reporter continue with her question, but in the same breath insisted that he should respond to what was just said.

The journalist said she would proceed with her question first, but Graham persisted that he must respond to the comment. Observing http://online-pharmacy.org/naltrexone/ from the outside, a member of the audience told Graham that he should allow the reporter the opportunity to ask her question, reminding too that it was a public consultation.

The reporter handed the mic to Graham who then explained, “I cannot accept that Anthony insulted anyone. You may not be satisfied with his answer, you can follow up, but the last thing I can accept is that he was insulting you…you can say that you were not satisfied with the answer.”

The journalist asked that she be allowed to ask her question to which Graham responded, “No, no. We’re done for today.”

This newspaper spoke to the gentleman who was adamant that the reporter be allowed to ask her questions. The man gave his name as Gregory Allen and was eager to comment on the incident.

Allen said, “Graham was being very disrespectful for shutting you up, and for standing up to Exxon. What Jackson did, he attempted to insult our intelligence by telling us that their operations will not affect fish.”

The Georgetown consultation

Only on Saturday, Kaieteur News reported that the public scoping meetings for Exxon’s sixth project is a farce, as key questions were left unanswered regarding insurance and use of excess gas during the operator’s meeting at Umana Yana, Kingston, Georgetown.

That session was hosted on Thursday, February 2, 2023.

A representative from the Guyana Environment Initiative was first to take the floor on Friday evening to understand which company or group is ensuring that drill cuttings which will be dumped into the ocean from the project are meeting international requirements, as Exxon claimed.

Jackson said there is a comprehensive system in place. He said drill cuttings are extracted from 2000 meters beneath the sea bed. He said Exxon subscribes to the use of internationally accepted fluids during the extraction and drilling process. Jackson also noted that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does go out to the oil vessels for inspection purposes too.

Having observed that the question was not answered, Kaieteur News followed up by asking Jackson to say which company is ensuring that Exxon is in compliance with international standards for its discharges.

This newspaper also asked the Exxon official to say who is determining the “international standards” to be used, especially when one considers the fact that the country does not have laws or regulations specific to the treatment of oil sector discharges offshore.

Jackson said there are a number of companies involved in the compliance process but failed to list the names of these firms.

“I have to admit this is not my area of expertise but we have a couple of folks in the room that are in charge of our environmental and regulatory process,” Jackson said.

As to the international standards, he said it is practice in the industry that countries utilize best practices that are accepted across the world and where there isn’t any specification or in-country guidance, Exxon defers to the standards it knows govern various aspects of the industry.

Guyanese environmental activist and Lawyer, Elizabeth Dean-Hughes also took to the floor to understand from Jackson, what percentage of the gas would be considered excess since only a small portion would be used for operational support.

Considering that Jackson was not clear in providing a specific number, Kaieteur News rephrased the question. He was asked to put a number to the excess that would be available from the project and what the options for government are, be it for export purposes or via another gas to energy project.

Jackson was unable to speak definitively on this matter. He said it would be addressed in the Environmental Impact Assessment to be produced by the company’s consultant.

Kaieteur News’ also asked about the insurance policy in place for this project and the implications of citizens ingesting marine species that would have consumed a cocktail of oil and toxic dispersants during an unmitigated oil spill scenario.

Jackson said, “On insurance, I would have to defer that question, I am not an insurance expert of the affiliate, I am aware of our commitment to address any issue that might arise especially if it was related to oil spills…Insurance is not the primary mechanism that we use to do that. If there is a car accident and we needed to act, we don’t wait and say ‘hold on let me call insurance’…that is a tool that is used after the fact to address any claims we might have…”

In the event there is an oil spill and dispersants are used to break the oil into small bits and marine organisms consume it, Jackson said, “it would have to be in significant quantities of oil for this to happen and it is not like a yellow-finned tuna is going around and is interested in eating dispersed oil. It is usually bacteria…The risk is fairly low in my view.”

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• Consultations, ExxonMobil, Guyana, Manager, Projects

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