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ExxonMobil to commence pipeline connections for Gas-to-Energy project in July – Project Manager
ExxonMobil’s Gas-to-Energy Project Manager, Friedrich Krispin
…Liza One and Two to be offline for 10 days
By Davina Bagot
Kaieteur News – Oil production at the Liza One and Liza Two projects in the Stabroek Block will be halted for about 10 days for ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) to connect the pipelines to transport gas to the Wales development site, West Bank Demerara.
This is according to EMGL’s Gas-to-Energy (GTE) Project Manager, Friedrich Krispin.
In an exclusive interview with this newspaper last week, Krispin explained that the connection activities will begin in July.
“We are starting that process at the beginning of July, that’s a process that takes about a couple weeks per FPSO and there’s a period in between that you are moving all of your equipment from one FPSO to the other. In the meantime, we are also building subsea structures on the bottom of the FPSOs where all these two lines connect together and connect onto the pipeline that’s gonna bring the gas onshore,” he said.
ExxonMobil is responsible for the construction of the offshore and onshore pipelines, while the government will be building a Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) facility and a 300-megawatt power plant.
The offshore works, according to Krispin is expected to be completed in the first half of August. The Project Manager said oil production will continue for most of the connection phase, however the facilities will be shut down for about 10 days.
“What happens is, you take some time to kind of bring down production and then there’s a period, a short period, usually about 10 days per FPSO where you are completely down,” he said.
Safety during operations
Meanwhile, Krispin told Kaieteur News that the oil company will employ the best technology to ensure there is no spill or disaster during this period.
According to him, “We run all our operations in an overall umbrella programe called Operations Integrity Management System. We rule every activity that we do based under this umbrella system that allows us to understand the risk associated with every activity and how we manage it properly. So, we have put through all our procedures, every activity that we are gonna do through the litmus test of this process and therefore be able to get our crews ready to be able to do it properly”.
He was asked therefore if Exxon can assure there will be no spills during the activity. To this end, he said that the chance of such an event would be significantly lower.
An artist’s impression of the GTE Project
Krispin said, “When you asked about oil spills, actually when you shut down an FPSO that’s when you are really safe because there is no production coming up through the FPSO, so we will make sure that the tanks are properly leveled to the point that you shut down oil production and then you do your work on the platform.”
“The reason that you’re shutting production is because you don’t want oil in the pipes when you are working around them cause you are doing some hot work, you are welding- things like that. So in those cases, you actually take the pressure down on the facilities and make sure everything is in the tanks and then you can work on top of the facilities…the chance of a spill is significantly limited when you have no production going through the pipes on top of an FPSO,” the Project Manager added.
Presently, ExxonMobil has completed approximately 50% of the pipeline works. The company received an Environmental Permit for the project back in November 25, 2022. Exxon has hired SICIM and Gaico to conduct the onshore pipeline works, while the contract for the offshore works was awarded to Van Oord.
The pipeline aspect of the GTE project is pegged at US$1B, and will be repaid by Guyana via annual payments of US$55 million for 20 years.
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