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ExxonMobil running its own country offshore

Jun 09, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – ExxonMobil has never had it better.  It is virtually running its own country 120 miles offshore, free from any heavy government hand.  When it must do something for the record, it feeds a captive PPPC government information that no Guyanese can really attest that it is what it says.  Meaning, it is accurate, and provides a clear and complete picture.  Produced water from oil operations being dumped overboard daily represents a reality about which Guyana does not know where it stands.

ExxonMobil has been given a free hand to inform the government about how much produced water it is pumping into our waters, and how it has treated that compound of many chemicals, some of them toxic and radioactive, over time.  Guyana’s Environmental Protection (EPA) Executive Director, Mr. Khemraj Parsram said that ExxonMobil has its onboard sensors that provide real-time feeds to the EPA.  ExxonMobil is obligated to comply with World Bank IFC standards, which is “49 mg per day, or on average 29 milligrams per liter per month”, according to the EPA boss.  That may be so, but the question for the government and Guyanese is whether the company could be trusted, in that it is supplying credible information, and Guyana can rely upon it.  There is so much that Guyanese don’t know about their oil wealth and ExxonMobil knows this.  We have neither expert capacity nor the range of technology and systems that could help us know where things really are. The issue is how much oil and other damaging chemicals could be present in the produced water dumped overboard far from shore, notwithstanding the feeds to the government from the FPSO sensors.

The current EPA head also shared in a recent podcast that the agency has secured its own sensors and have them in operation at several locations in Guyana.  Currently, there are three sensors measuring water quality (temperature, dissolved solids, and so on), with a fourth to be operational soon.  This is helpful to know, but the issue is whether what we have is enough and can capture what ExxonMobil is really doing with the millions of gallons of produced water that it is dumping.

Dr. Vincent Adams, the former head of the EPA, and an old hand in the oil industry, was keen to note that when the EPA refers to “29 milligrams per liter it adds up.  For every million barrels of water dumped that is 29 to 40 barrels of oil is going there.”  We hear clearly what this Petroleum Engineer with decades of experience behind his belt is saying, but is the Guyana Government listening, and does it care?  It may sound like a tiny amount that “29 milligrams per liter” but with daily oil production where it is and set to nearly double in a couple of years to around 1.2 million barrels daily, the quantity of resulting wastewater dumped overboard, even if treated properly, must be a source of concern from today.  Dr. Adams noted that the Guyana Government is doing the opposite of what a responsible national overseer should do.  That is, get ExxonMobil to reinject the produced water from its operations back into the wells, regardless of what that requires in effort and costs.  Unfortunately, the record of the PPPC Government is to stand aside and give ExxonMobil carte blanche to do what is best for its own interests.  However this is analyzed, the unwritten objective is that ExxonMobil must not be inconvenienced nor inhibited in any way in its race to produce cheap Guyana oil and profit richly.  If that comes at a steep price for Guyanese, then so be it.

Taking all this into account, we at this paper make our position known again: ExxonMobil has scant credibility with us.  We cannot trust a company that colludes with an aiding and abetting PPPC Government to conceal so much from the citizens of this country.  It could be the amount of oil from new discoveries announced.  Or the true daily oil production numbers at the offshore operations.  Or the real figures and the associated circumstances in the billions of dollars of expenses submitted by the company.  Or dumped produced water amounts and how it has been treated.

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