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Flaring: limiting or leaving alone

May 08, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Guyanese born Professor, Dr. Ulric Trotz has made it clear that the compensation that ExxonMobil pays this country for flaring gas into the atmosphere and environment does not do much to help repair damage done.

We agree, for when ExxonMobil has handed over its money, it is still woefully short of what Guyana needs to set things right in its still virginal environment.  Further, as penalties go, there is much left to be desired. Too much more room is given to the oil behemoth to pollute at will.

Since Dr. Trotz is a known and highly regarded authority, it would be interesting if the PPPC Government and its always ultra-sensitive leadership gives free rein to their propagandists to go after him in efforts to diminish his record and his name. We think that will do two things, of which one is to lend more muscle to what Dr. Trotz is saying, and the other is keeping the flaring issue before the public.

The government is caught in a bind. If it were to let what Dr. Trotz placed before the world go unaddressed, he could take stronger and sharper positions on this gas flaring issue, and the negligible slap on the wrist fee enjoyed by the company for its actions. Also, it will encourage others of like or close stature to Professor Trotz to weigh in on what ExxonMobil has been greenlighted to do by the government. To make matters worse, if in some unexpected instance of prudence, the PPPC brain trust decides to leave what this Guyanese scientist said, it adds credence to the position that he has staked out.

Looking at this flaring issue clinically, a fee or fine of US$50 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalents is a joke, so meaningless it is in the bigger picture. For ExxonMobil, US$50 is not even a droplet in its big cash bucket. It is a halfpenny quickly paid and still more quickly forgotten for all the financial pinch that it created for this multibillion-dollar oil supergiant. US$50 per tonne of dangerous emissions is not a deterrent for a corporation with the strength of ExxonMobil. It does the opposite: it incentivizes the company to continually ratchet up its daily oil production numbers at its offshore oilfields, which leads to more flaring and damaging of the environment.

Has this not been the case with ExxonMobil, where even the recommended production safety limits have been exceeded almost rather recklessly? To some extent, it could be said that the laughable US$50 fee is more of a nuisance for ExxonMobil than a negative, so meaningless it is. We note that a component of the gas flared by ExxonMobil is methane, which is 28 times more harmful than carbon dioxide, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. The fact that there is an international agreement in place to cut methane pollution from oi production activities should give the government pause. What is revealing is how casual and contemptuous the leading government spokespeople have been about concerns such as these.

It is frightening to contemplate how much leeway the company has been gifted, and the consequences for the environment that follow, forest cover and carbon sink or not, and with both given their proper due. Dr. Trotz said it, and we totally agree that whatever ExxonMobil is paying today, and could be increased in the future, it will not be enough to compensate for the damage inflicted on the environment. Oil production activities have been allowed to flourish globally because they mean so much to energy demands and many national economies. Some governments have forced oil companies to take many precautions to reduce gas flaring emissions into the environment. The fears about damage are at a fever pitch, yet the Government of Guyana could be said to be a willing party to the flaring excesses of ExxonMobil in its headlong rush to maximize its profits from its local offshore oilfields. For emphasis, US$50 per tonne of emission is nothing, and does nothing to guard the environment from being further damaged. Take gas flaring seriously, be aware of this country’s role, put caps on how much ExxonMobil is allowed to flare, and monitor what the company does.

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