Patterson calls for investigation into reports of defective foundation at Gas-to-Energy project

Jul 18, 2026 News

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(Kaieteur News) – The interim leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC), David Patterson is calling on the government of Guyana (GoG) to investigate reports of defective foundation works at the flagship Gas-to-Energy (GTE) still under construction at Wales, West Bank Demerara.

In an interview with this newspaper, Patterson said, “there have been reports of defective foundation works, which requires further investigation and rectification works, even before these generation sets can be connected to the pipeline.”

He cautioned that proceeding without any corrective action or review of the claims will lead to a potential major disaster.

On July 7, 2026, Kaieteur News reported that sources close to the multi-billion-dollar project, including project insiders and sub-contractors, pointed out potential structural integrity challenges. According to these sources, concerns have been raised regarding the concrete piles driven into the ground and the concrete poured for the foundation works at the site.

This publication understands that the concrete failure was flagged by specialised testing conducted on-site by Beston Consulting, an engineering firm involved in the project. Beston was reportedly hired to conduct rigorous, real-time concrete testing.

According to sources familiar with the site operations, tests conducted at this laboratory have flagged instances where concrete pours failed to meet the strict structural and compressive strength-requirements specified for the project.

Technical officers advised that in heavy industrial construction, foundation concrete must meet precise design strengths to support massive machinery, including heavy industrial gas turbines and high-pressure processing facilities. Any deviation from these standards risks uneven settlement, structural cracking, and long-term operational hazards.

The reported findings raise urgent questions about the extent of the concrete deviations identified by Beston’s on-site lab and the reason for the lack of public disclosure or technical updates regarding these quality control challenges from the Office of the President, the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Natural Resources as well as the GTE Taskforce.

According to sources, “Industrial gas and steam turbines are incredibly delicate, highly engineered machines. They operate at extreme temperatures and rotational speeds exceeding 3,000 RPM. For these units to run safely, the concrete foundations supporting them must remain perfectly level, rigid, and completely free from differential settlement, meaning one side of the foundation cannot sink even a fraction of a millimeter more than the other.”

Experts warn that even a microscopic misalignment of a turbine shaft, measured in microns, can have catastrophic consequences. It can trigger severe rotational vibrations, rapid bearing wear, and shaft fatigue. In a worst-case scenario, misalignment causes “blade rub”—where rotating blades spin out of balance and impact the stationary casing, causing catastrophic mechanical failure and the total destruction of a turbine worth tens of millions of dollars.

Furthermore, this newspaper was warned, “If a foundation is discovered to be defective after concrete has cured, the remediation is an engineering nightmare. Unlike a standard commercial building, you cannot simply patch a turbine foundation. Correcting a failed pour typically requires complete demolition of the massive, heavily reinforced concrete foundation block; chipping away cured concrete and dense rebar cages without damaging the underlying piles; re-driving piles or performing complex underpinning, followed by a complete repouring of the concrete.”

According to industry specialists, such a remediation process can easily delay a project by 6 to 18 months and cost tens of millions of US dollars in direct construction costs.

For his part, Patterson told Kaieteur News that the GoG is well aware of the defects and delays but continues to “deceive” the public through public relations stunts claiming completion of the transmission lines to distribute power, with no electricity to be generated at Wales until the end of this year.

Although government has said the project will be completed by December 2026, Patterson believes that there is no definitive deadline for the scheme.

He said, “A project that was slated to be completed by 2024, now does not have a definitive end date, which is why the PPP were forced to renew the rental agreement with the 36MW power ship for an additional two years, since they are well aware that this project has about that time period to be completed, if it ever will be completed.”

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• AFC, defective foundation, gas-to-energy, investigate

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