The Liza-1 well offshore Guyana could supply the country with approximately 50 million standard cubic feet of natural gas per day and one expert says future exploration campaigns by ExxonMobil at the prolific Stabroek Block could see much more of this resource becoming available.
Former Minister of Energy in Trinidad and Tobago, Kevin Ramnarine said the development of a Gas Master Plan will play a crucial role in how Guyana manages the resources. He was speaking at the time during an appearance on OilNOW TV’s gas to power webinar series.
ExxonMobil Guyana has said natural gas makes up around 20 percent of the resources discovered so far at the Stabroek Block. This works out to approximately 9.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
“But there is also potential, in my opinion, for more natural gas to come down that pipeline as years progress and more FPSO’s come into production,” Ramnarine stated. “Now, that presents a huge development opportunity for Guyana and I think that there is a need for a well-thought-out master gas plan type document for the country as to how it plans to use the gas.”
Further to this, the former energy minister was keen to note that ExxonMobil has very few options for natural gas offshore. Option one he pointed out, is to re-inject. He stressed however that there is only so much that can be returned to the reservoir. Option two is to use some of the gas for power generation on the FPSO. As for the third option, he said this relates to monetizing the gas. “And somewhere in between, if things go wrong, as they recently went wrong…with the compressor on the Liza Destiny, the only option is to either shut-in oil production or to flare right? And nobody wants to shut-in oil production and nobody wants to flare,” he pointed out.
Ramnarine said it therefore means that as the decade progresses, more gas will be making its ways to the coastline which will require the authorities to examine the best ways to develop industries that are sustainable while spurring job creation.
