Jagdeo says Exxon’s ramping up of oil production “safe”

May 18, 2024 ExxonMobil, News, Oil & Gas

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Kaieteur News – ExxonMobil Guyana’s further ramping up of oil production in the Stabroek block is “safe”, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said on Thursday at his weekly press conference held at Freedom House, Robb Street.

The Vice President was at the time responding to a question posed by Kaieteur about the safety of increasing oil production.

“In light of ExxonMobil’s further ramping up production, we would like to know ….Can you say whether the EPA is fully equipped to determine, if by looking at whatever document they would have submitted, if they submitted any… can you say if the EPA is equipped to determine whether this is being safely done and if not have they reached out to international experts to contract them to have their assistance in this?” the reporter asked Jagdeo.

In response, he said that “Last week I dealt with that issue and I said that my briefing is that before they ramped up production beyond rated capacity, that this was cleared with the Ministry.  The Ministry assured me their technical officers examined it, I spoke with the EPA, they said they had examined it carefully too so they are aware and it was done with their approval. Both agencies the Ministry of Natural Resources and the EPA and they believe it was done and it’s safe.”

Earlier this month, Kaieteur News reported that ExxonMobil Guyana Limited has already breached the safe operating limits outlined in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for its second deep water project, Liza Two; however, the company will be conducting further modifications to the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel- Unity- to accelerate its daily oil production.

Exxon’s Country Manager, Alistair Routledge had told reporters during a media conference at its head office in Kingston, Georgetown that when the FPSO goes offline in the third quarter of the year to facilitate the tie-in works for the Gas-to-Energy (GTE) project, the company will take advantage of the downtime to conduct maintenance and further debottlenecking activities.

Routledge reported that the company had a “very strong” production start in the beginning of the year, resulting from the “industry leading ramp up of the Payara project” and the very strong reliability performance in the Liza One and Two assets. Although all three of the FPSOs are currently producing above the respective design capacity, the Liza Unity is poised for further optimization works.

Presently, Liza One and Liza Two are producing about 150,000 bpd and 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) respectively. The EIAs each specifically outline 120,000 and 220,000 bpd, as the safe operating limit for Liza One and Two, respectively. Similarly, the third oil project- Payara- is also producing approximately 230,000 bpd even though the vessel’s nameplate capacity is 220,000 bpd.

On the same issue of Exxon ramping up its production past safe limits outlined in the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) said at a recent press conference that it underscores the need for the country to be furnished with an unlimited parent company guarantee to respond to the devastation likely to be caused by a massive spill.

Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton in response to the Kaieteur News article on the ramping up of oil production said, “We said earlier that we are not supportive of that approach if I recall. Our position is we need to be very, very careful, look at every project separately and to space it out. There are dangers involved if you are going above the limit – that is dangers for the people of Guyana because any mishap that occurs will impact the Guyanese people negatively.”

He added, “Like we said, while we want investment, we want to see oil production, the interest of the people of Guyana must come first and they (government) should not be encouraging any company to go above the safety limits and endanger the people of Guyana.”

Notwithstanding, the Vice President at his May 9, 2024 press conference said that the government has “independent satellite monitoring now to detect any sheen in the water so that even small quantities of oil leaks can be detected because of high resolution satellite imaging and monitoring.”

He has also explained that the technology allowed them to monitor the amount of oil extracted by the oil company and its partners from the Stabroek Block.

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• Exxon, FPSO, production, ramping, safety

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