Guyana’s President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, says his administration is committed to establishing a natural gas facility to meet the energy needs of the South American nation. Dr. Ali’s comments come almost a week after President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge, said approximately 20 percent of the more than 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent resources discovered at the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, contain natural gas.
For decades, Guyana has faced the issue of power outages and the high electricity cost, which many businesses have complained about and attributed their high operational costs to. Then, following the discovery of the offshore resources, discussions got underway on piping some of the natural gas to shore.
On Monday, President Ali, who took office in early August, told the country’s Private Sector Commission, “We need to address the issue of energy and the cost of energy. So, we have committed to have the hydro project back on the agenda supported by a natural gas facility.”
He said the objective is to bring down the cost of energy in three years’ time by almost 60 percent. “So, we must have a net surplus of energy, enough energy to develop a proper manufacturing and processing sector… that will bring down the cost of that energy by almost 60 percent,” he said. “So this is another aspect of improving our competitiveness.”
Back in 2017, a feasibility study was undertaken to examine the costs and associated impacts of bringing natural gas onshore Guyana by way of a pipeline, and in late 2017, a number of sites were shortlisted for the establishment of a natural gas power plant.
