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No plans to export gas found at Whiptail – Exxon
…will re-inject into reservoirs to ensure maximum oil recovery
Kaieteur News – Associated Gas from Guyana’s 6th oil project in the Stabroek Block – Whiptail will be re-injected and not exported, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has revealed.
Despite the presence of trillions of cubic feet of associated gases, ExxonMobil Guyana made it clear that the unused gas will be re-injected to power the Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel for the US$12.7B Whiptail project.
The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which was submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of the regulatory approval process in order to sanction the project has outlined what the oil company intends to do with the associated gas.
According to that document, the Whiptail field contains substantial quantities of associated gas. However, ExxonMobil said that there are three primary alternatives considered for managing associated gas which includes flaring, re-injection and export.
“Continuous flaring of associated gas is not recommended due to the associated air emissions, so this option was not considered. Gas re-injection was evaluated as an option to maintain reservoir pressure and improved oil recovery,” the EIA said.
The U.S. oil company said that gas re-injection “was selected because it provides greater efficiency than water injection alone and will increase the amount of crude oil that can be recovered over time.”
To this end, it was explained that under this alternative, associated gas that is not used as fuel gas on the FPSO will be re-injected in support of normal operations, which results in lower air emissions than the continuous flaring option.
As it relates to exports specifically, the company said, a gas export study was conducted for the Whiptail Project to evaluate the impact gas exports would have on oil production forecasts and estimated ultimate recovery.
“The results from the study indicate that any reduction in injected gas would result in reduced oil recovery. For this reason, the current development plan does not include gas exports. Space accommodation and limited facilities are provided on the FPSO as a prudent pre-investment to enable potential for future export at a later stage of development.”
It did note however, that any proposal for the implementation of gas export would be addressed under a separate “Environmental Authorization process and is therefore outside the scope of this EIA.”
The Government is in possession of a draft Gas Utilization Strategy prepared by ExxonMobil, which was released for feedback from the public.
Presently, Guyana’s only concrete plans for the utilization of associated gas are tied to the Wales development project.
This project, entails the bringing onshore of associated gases extracted from the Liza Destiny and Unity FPSO’s, in order to power a 300MW gas fired plant.
This is in addition to the establishment of a Natural Gas processing facility for the production of cooking gas for the domestic and export market.
Among other projects being floated for use of the associated gas to be brought onshore via a US$1B pipeline, is the production of fertilizers.
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