Latest update April 8th, 2025 7:13 AM
Oil spill will hit Guyana’s shores before capping stack arrives to plug leak
Kaieteur News- An oil spill that occurs in the Stabroek Block could hit parts of Guyana’s shorelines before the capping stack arrives at the blown-out well to plug the leak.
According to information publicly available and recently confirmed by an ExxonMobil team, the 93,000-pound piece of equipment will take “several days” to arrive at its destination. Permits issued to date by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicate that Exxon has up to nine days to ensure the capping stack is deployed.
The capping stack that is in-country
The renewed Liza One Permit states at Section 9.13, “The Permit Holder shall maintain access to at least one (1) subscription service, in a location outside of Guyana, to allow mobilization of a Capping Stack to the Liza Phase 1 Project location within nine (9) calendar days or less of an uncontrolled well event.”
A similar provision is included in the five other projects approved to date by the regulator.
Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) conducted by Exxon’s consultant indicate, however, that an oil spill could hit the shores of this country before the capping stack arrives at a blown-out well. Notably, this heavy piece of equipment is used to stop or redirect the flow of hydrocarbons, allowing engineers to permanently seal the well.
Oil spill modeling, according to Exxon’s most recent EIA conducted for its seventh project, the Hammerhead development, states that an oil spill could hit Region One in as little as a day, depending on the time of the year the event occurs.
The study said modeling predicted that surface oil would generally travel toward the northwest in all scenarios during both modeled seasons -June through November, and December through May.
It stated, “For the Maximum WCD (Worst Case Discharge) scenario, the model predicted a 5- 10% probability of oil contacting the Region One coast during the June to November season. The minimum time to reach the shoreline predicted by the model was 5 to 15 days.”
Meanwhile, with regard to the December to May season, it was explained, “The model predicted probabilities of 5- 20% and 5-70% of oil reaching the coast of Region Two and Region One, respectively. The modeled minimum time for oil to reach the shoreline for this scenario is 5 to 15 days for Region Two and 1 to 10 days for Region One.”
See more information on the oil spill models here: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2025/02/26/oil-spill-from-7th-project-has-70-chance-of-hitting-region-one-shorelines-eia/
Capping stack deployment
During a public disclosure meeting for the Hammerhead project at Diamond on Friday, Kaieteur News asked ExxonMobil to say whether there was a standard time for the capping stack to be transported offshore and effectively plug a well.
Exxon’s Projects Environmental and Regulatory Manager, Mariya Skocik explained, “It requires some logistics like we have to put it on the ship, take it offshore to the location, lower it down to the sea bottom…generally speaking several days to be able to deport…our production license says nine days so it would definitely be within that timeframe.”
Meanwhile, EMGL Projects Manager, Rebecca Cvikota, assured that in addition to mobilizing the capping stack, ExxonMobil would activate its emergency response team immediately and start working towards addressing the situation through various methods, including the use of dispersants.
Cvikota added, “Many countries have to wait for the capping stack to arrive from a different destination, which can take time for it to get here in country; ours is here already, so it’s a matter of accessing it (and) assembling it because there is some assembly required. We preserve it properly, but we need to assemble it to send it offshore.”
The In-Country Projects Manager was also keen to note that there are instances where the capping stack may not be required to stop a spill. She explained that the tool is only used in specific situations.
“In some of our previous presentations, we talked about subsea trees and those sit on top of the well-head…and that tree has all kinds of wells attached to it that we would close immediately in the event we would have any kind of oil leak. However, if the tree wasn’t working or if there was something wrong with that tree, that’s when the capping stack would be deployed,” Cvikota stated.
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