Alistair Routledge said ExxonMobil Guyana anticipates submitting environmental and project authorization requests for its second gas development within months, as the company advances plans to build out a full gas value chain.
The ExxonMobil Guyana President made the disclosure on day two of the Guyana Energy Conference and Supply Chain Expo at the Guyana Marriott Hotel in Georgetown.
“We anticipate that in the coming weeks, the next couple of months, we will likely submit a request for authorization and environmental authorization for the second gas project in the southeast part of the Stabroek Block,” Routledge said.
The move reflects increasing assurance in the offshore resource. “Gas is more complicated. We require the full value chain,” he added.
Routledge noted that gas development demands more integration than oil.
“Trinidad has for decades in the development of that gas value chain, has multiple ways in which they monetize their gas, from LNG export to onshore chemical plants many ways to develop the gas it supports local industry,” he said. “Guyana does not today have an onshore gas market,” he said.
Routledge referenced President Irfaan Ali’s remarks from the previous day about expanding gas use beyond power generation.
“That is the vision, in addition to gas to energy and the Wales development, our commitment and our energy is going behind developing a gas fueled industrial development,” he said.
He outlined three requirements to make that plan viable.
“The first is the confidence in the upstream resource,” he said.
“We have growing confidence, and we can see a path forward to developing the upstream resource, including what it takes to deliver that resource from offshore to onshore by pipeline,” Routledge said.
“We’ve already started the work on the concepts and how will we construct the pipeline. What size does it need to be, and where would it deliver the gas onshore” he added.
“The second element that we need to think about is the onshore infrastructure,” he said. “And the third element is the collaboration, existing partnerships, but also the new partnerships that will be needed in order to develop this full gas vision,” Routledge said.
The plan for a second pipeline is consistent with the ‘Wales Gas Vision’ presented at the fourth Guyana Energy Conference in February by ExxonMobil Guyana President, Alistair Routledge. That vision anticipates the supply of natural gas to an offshore LNG export facility, and to Berbice for alumina and fertilizers production, as well as data centers.
Anchoring the vision is ExxonMobil’s Longtail development. The Longtail project is being designed to operate for three decades, making it the company’s longest-running production venture in the Stabroek Block. The project is expected to produce around one billion cubic feet of gas per day and 250,000 barrels of condensate.
