The faulty 3rd stage Flash Gas Compressor from the Liza Destiny FPSO operating offshore Guyana is en route to Germany where an assessment of the issue and repairs will get underway soon. President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge, and Production Manager, Mike Ryan, briefed the local media on the issue on Monday, indicating that the equipment should be back in Guyana in approximately 8 weeks.
“Late last night I can confirm the Flash Gas Compressor along with key piping that’s connected to it as well as all the critical spare parts that we have, left here on its way to Belgium. It has arrived in Europe and is being transported now to Germany,” Ryan stated.
He said experts from ExxonMobil, SBM Offshore – builder and operator of the FPSO – and MAN Turbo, manufacturer of the compressor, are on stand-by and will begin to inspect the equipment by the middle of this week.
Company officials said the full extent of the damage will not be known until a detailed inspection of the compressor can take place in Germany.
“It really depends on; as we open the equipment…in Germany, what do we find, what repairs are required, the other upgrades that may be required. So, we don’t have an exact timeframe, but order of magnitude – it’s approximately 8 weeks to do this,” Routledge said.
In addition to the repairs on the existing equipment, the company said an order has been placed for a new flash gas compressor which will be available closer to the end of the year, given the complex nature of the equipment.
The equipment encountered challenges on the night of January 27, he explained, indicating that there was some optimization testing ongoing at the time, with steady rates.
“We were testing different levels to see what sort of capacities we have. So, it was a number of different rates, all well within the overall capacity limits,” he said, adding, “It was around 130,000 [barrels per day – bpd].”
Ryan had earlier explained that the total liquid capacity of the FPSO is 158,000 bpd while the total gas handling capacity is 190 standard cubic feet per day.
“We were only about 70 percent of that amount when we were doing our testing and remained in that range with a total amount of gas. So, earlier in life we don’t have a lot of gas. This facility…is fully designed for the rates that we have been running at; both gas and liquid capacity,” Ryan said.
The Liza Destiny FPSO began producing oil in December 2019 as part of Phase 1 of the Liza Development at the prolific Stabroek Block.
