Page 4 - LatAmOil Week 09 2022

COMMENTAR
LatAmOil COMMENTARY Y LatAmOil

(Image: ExxonMobil)
Re-injection and other

ideas for Guyana’s gas

ExxonMobil slow-walks GTP project, in a sign that ambitious ideas about how to dispose
of Guyana’s associated gas in environmentally friendly ways may not come to fruition

IF ExxonMobil (US) had started drilling for technical problems that forced ExxonMobil to
oil at the Stabroek block offshore Guyana at a flare more gas than anticipated from the floating
WHAT: time when environmental regulations were less production, storage and off-loading (FPSO) ves-
A Guyanese Natural Re- strict, it would never have had to worry about sel deployed at the Liza-1 oilfield have drawn no
sources Ministry official the fact that it found billions of cubic metres of small amount of criticism from Guyanese poli-
says ExxonMobil has not associated gas along with billions of barrels of ticians, journalists and members of the public.
pledged enough gas to crude. Instead, it could simply have resorted to Moreover, the critiques have been sharp enough
support the expanded the old-fashioned method of treating the gas like to convince the government to impose tighter
version of the GTP plan.
waste material and flaring it. limits on gas flaring for subsequent stages of
As it happens, though, ExxonMobil made its development work at other sections of Stabroek
WHY: first discovery of oil at the Liza field in 2015, so it – i.e., at the Liza-2, Payara and Yellowtail fields.
Associated gas could
also be used to support has not had the option of treating associated gas But re-injection is not Guyana’s only option
a regional power grid or like a nuisance that ought to be burned just to for avoiding flaring. The South American state
an LNG/gas hub offshore get it out of the way. Instead, it’s been legally and is also pursuing plans for the construction of a
Suriname. contractually obligated to commit to solutions pipeline that will pump some of the gas extracted
such as gas re-injection that have a much lower from Liza-1 and Liza-2 – and perhaps from sub-
WHAT NEXT: impact in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. sequent development targets at Stabroek – to
The most ambitious plans Moreover, the company’s failures to meet its shore so that it can be used to generate electricity
may be slower to develop. obligations in full have not gone unnoticed. The or support the economy in other ways.

P4 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 09 03•March•2022