Govt. reversed re-injection of produced water for Yellowtail project

Apr 26, 2023 News

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…hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil to be dumped overboard – AFC

Kaieteur News – The Permit granted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), authorizing ExxonMobil’s third project in the Stabroek Block- the Payara development- required the operator to conduct a study to determine the feasibility of re-injecting 100 percent of the produced water from the reservoirs.

Produced water is a liquid that is extracted during oil production activities. It contains dissolved mineral salts, or may be mixed with organic compounds such as acids, waxes, and mineral oils. It may also be mixed with inorganic metals and byproducts or with trace amounts of heavy metals and naturally-occurring radioactive materials, the US Department of Energy said in a research paper. It is also usually very high in temperature, and can be deadly to marine organisms.

Due to its toxicity, this substance is best re-injected into the wells, though this may be a costly exercise.

The EPA Permit for the Payara project required that a study be done by Permit Holder to investigate the feasibility, benefits and implications of this alternative. This is stated in Section 4.10 of the document.

It must be noted that even though the Permit to Exxon provides for treatment of the produced water prior to dumping, it also made it clear that this condition was subjected to the outcome of the investigation.

Section 4.10.6 states, “Condition 4.7 may be amended by the Agency in consideration (of) the aforementioned approved study and the conclusions of the EPA, the Permit Holder and the Minister of Natural Resources, the Minister responsible for Petroleum.”

This report should have been completed approximately 210 days after the Payara Permit was issued- considering Section 4.10.1 and 4.10.2 of the document. Efforts by this publication to ascertain whether the EPA received this report were futile.

Meanwhile, the Yellowtail Permit- for Exxon’s fourth project- makes no mention of reinjecting the associated produced water.

Instead, the document states that the Permit holder will be required to treat the substance to ensure “oil content specification of produced water to be discharged does not exceed 42 mg/l on a daily basis or 29 mg/l on a monthly average”. This is outlined in Section 4.4 of the Permit.

This requirement is also the current standard utilized at the two producing fields, the Liza One and Liza Two projects, offshore Guyana.

As such, former Head of the EPA, Dr. Vincent Adams is warning that the accumulated dumping of produced water can have dangerous impacts on both marine and human life.

During an Alliance For Change (AFC) press conference on Friday, Dr. Adams a Petroleum and Environmental Engineer told reporters that while Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo boasts of tightening environmental provisions in the Permits, the government failed to ensure the operator reinjects this toxic waste back into the wells.

Dr. Adams said that the Payara Permit was drafted under the former Coalition but was signed by the People’s Progressive Party, after assuming office in August 2020.

“The other thing they did, in the Payara, that we also wrote that they signed afterwards, we said that they have to re-inject all of the water back into the reservoir. They removed that completely to let the water be dumped in the ocean,” he said.

The former EPA head believes government is allowing Exxon to “do whatever they want” out of “greed”.

He explained, “We have got all that water being dumped into the ocean instead of re-injecting so over the life, and when we see the EPA send out this narrative here about they are treating the water, there are still oil in the water and if you calculate that small concentration over the life of the field, we will have had hundreds of thousands of barrels of pure oil dumped in the ocean with that water.”

The Petroleum Engineer therefore noted, “So when they talk about its only 29 milligrams per liter, it adds up. For every million barrel of water that is dumped, 29 to 40 barrels of oil is going there. So if you add it up, you are going to be dumping hundreds of thousands of pure oil into that ocean, not to mention the toxic metals such as led, mercury and radioactivity, natural radioactivity that is coming from the water from the earth.”

Simply put, Dr. Adams said for every million barrel of produced water that is discharged, 29 barrels of oil is also being released into the ocean.

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• dumping, ExxonMobil, oil, produced water, re-injection

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