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US$100M spent to fix sinking Gas-to-energy site
…Lindsayca boss says in explaining 14-month delay of project
(Kaieteur News) – Chairman of Lindsayca, Nelson Drake, has revealed that a staggering US$100 million was spent to stabilise the unstable soil at the Wales Gas-to-Energy project site—a challenge that set the massive undertaking back by 14 months.
The Chairman of Lindsayca Nelson Drake, during his presentation at the IBC held at the Guyana Marriott Hotel.
Speaking at the International Business Conference (IBC) held at the Guyana Marriott Hotel on Wednesday, Drake said the project’s timeline was severely impacted by unexpected ground liquefaction at the West Bank Demerara site.
Drake explained that he understands that everyone is expecting startup, and while that is great and citizens want their electricity the process has to be understood. He highlighted that the project is at 68.03% completion, with 89% of the engineering done, 90.46% of the procurement done, but the construction completion is only at 23%.
“A lot of people look at this and say, this is backwards. Usually, the civil work is done and they’re waiting to get equipment. Today, over 75% of this equipment is in Georgetown, the turbines, the hearsays, the best, all of it is in Georgetown,” he said.
However, the hurdle that has to be overcome is the fact that the land at the site on the West Bank of the Demerara River has a very rare mixture of sands. “…so matter of fact, there’s a convention in Geneva and Fugro. So, world renowned company, who we contracted to do this stabilisation of the soil, is presenting in that conference in Geneva, this case study of Guyana.”
Going into detail Drake said that there was liquefaction at the site and therefore this means that it was not fit for construction. “The equipment that we’re putting on the site is basically a gas process facility, which is easily can become a bomb at any time if it’s not done properly, and also the Simmons turbine and the power island have to be perfectly aligned,” he added.
Furhermore, “There’s no tolerance here for that land to move, and therefore you have to stabilise and consolidate and dewater that land. So, we use top of the line technology, we spent over $100 million stabilising that soil,” Drakes revealed.
He reminded that top of the line instruments had to be used and this is something a lot of persons do not understand. A lot of money can be thrown on a site but the land will still react the way it reacts, and therefore it needs to be stabilised. “So, you have to wait until it’s completely stable before you can start building this very expensive and very delicate equipment. That is why we’re behind. It took us 14 months to stabilise and over $100 million,” Drake said.
At present the land has been stabilised and consolidated and all four of the main foundations for the turbines have been poured. Those being the biggest foundations on site, a whopping 44,000 cubic meters of cement, were used in the process. “Anyways, those foundations have been done. The thing about this foundation is you got to pour them at night, because they’re so massive, we actually put sensors in the rebar, and we measure the temperature throughout the evening. Usually you’ll start at five, six o’clock in the afternoon, you’ll finish up to three, four a.m. in the morning,” Drake revealed.
He told the audience that major equipment like the gas turbines, the steam turbines, the cooling towers and transformers are already in Georgetown and are being stored at the Guyana Shore Base Incorporated (GYSBI). This marks 90% of eventhing needed to buld the plant being in country, however while the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) processing facility is 100% completely built, it remain in Houston Texas, as there is no space on the GYSBI port to facilitate its storage, but by Christmas it will be in Guyana, Drake assured.
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Why didn’t they know this before this project was started,wasn’t no study of the soil done? looks like theft is taking place here.
In the year 2025 we actually listened to someone saying 100 million USD was used to stabilize soil to accommodate precision turbine as we did not want a Bomb.
What is this Expat engineer selling us. We dug up the unstable sugar cane soil and replaced it with Sand Stone Cement Steel to the tune of 100 million Would this ignorance pass a cxc account audit
Socu. come on do you job