The consortium looking at building a mini-oil refinery here still has to do market studies and clarified that the refinery could take between 18 months and three years to establish.
An information session was hosted at the Princess Hotel yesterday and Prime Minister Samuel Hinds said that a mini-refinery here has potential but he did not want the potential to be overstated.
Questioned on environmental issues as it relates to the proposed refinery yesterday, Director of Energy Systems at Prime Energy Raul Arrondo said that it was too early to approach the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for approval. “Before we do the environmental study, we have to do our commercial study,” he said, while adding that they have to get a better feel for what is the actual demand of fuel and it products here.
They can then tailor the refinery to maximise on production of those products and will then have a better picture of what the whole endeavour looks like and then could go EPA with it, he said. As to when the refinery can actually come on stream, he said that this depends on what the market is requiring in terms of quality and quantity of products. The refinery can come on stream between 18 months to three years, he said.
Arrondo added that they will try to lower emissions as much as possible, while pointing out that the gases created will be used in the process and not flared or released into the atmosphere as in a conventional refinery. He said that they will only flare the gas as an emergency measure if there is a big build-up of gases. “It’s air-cooled, we don’t use water for cooling,” he noted too. “Our process is based on trying to keep it (emissions) very low from the beginning,” he said.
Meanwhile, Arrondo said that they are putting together a package for financiers and working on getting government approval. He said that he was not sure how long the process would take and the financiers can wait “as long as we need.”
He said they are working with a scenario of no oil being produced here. “Our whole structure is based on importing the crude from any of the sources that are available,” he said, while noting though that if oil is discovered here it would make sense to use local oil.
The consortium, comprising Prime Energy and Chemical LLC, Kuai Energy Systems and Chemex LLC of the US, is examining building Guyana’s first oil refinery to provide cheaper fuel in an initial investment estimated at US$75M. 100 jobs could be provided. There are still several issues that have to be worked out, such as the location of the proposed mini-refinery and the finalisation of the concept.
