The landing site for the pipeline and location where the infrastructure is to be set up for the gas to power project in Guyana will be finalized before the end of the year with work set to begin in 2021. This is in keeping with the government’s plan to develop a natural gas power generation facility in order to cut the country’s energy cost by some 60 percent.
Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, told OilNOW on Thursday that discussions for the project are well advanced and significant preliminary work has already been completed.
“There are sites that have been located already and proposed based on suitability of location, distribution into the grid, availability of land,” Mr. Bharrat said. “So there’s a lot of work that has already been done by people who are in the system at the Ministry of Finance and some of these people will be in the task force that will be set up by the President.”
He said the task force could begin work as early as next week while reaffirming that ExxonMobil, operator at the Stabroek Block, “is fully on board.” The company has said it expects significant progress to be made on the project in the coming year. “We have completed studies and offshore surveys on the pipeline, and we are ready to work with the government on the plans,” said Alistair Routledge, ExxonMobil Guyana’s President. The company has said approximately 20 percent of the more than 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent resources found so far at the Stabroek Block, is natural gas.
Mr. Bharrat participated in a panel discussion earlier on Thursday, as part of the Madrid Energy Virtual Conference, where he also spoke about his government’s intent to begin work on the project next year. “…we are hoping to start that project sometime soon in 2021 so that we can utilize that gas to produce electricity not only at a cheaper rate which was promised to our people but also a reliable source of electricity. So that is something that we will be working on in the new year.”
Further explaining these plans to OilNOW, he said based on several locations which have been identified for setting up the infrastructure, a final decision will be made by the end of the year. Locations have been identified on the East Coast of Demerara, Berbice, Parika and even a proposal for a location in Region 1.
“We have to look at the cost of bringing it to shore…and, of course, the availability of land because of course you will need a minimum of 1500 acres of land. You might even need 2000 I would say, because remember you also have to cater for expansion,” he pointed out.
He said the task force will review the study and determine the most feasible location with cost and size of the area available for development, being the key factors to consider.
“We’re hoping to do all of that before the end of the year because if the task force starts working in October, then we’ll have three full months to… identify a suitable location, get the land available and then start working on design early next year,” Mr. Bharrat said.
