As the national focus continues to shift inexorably from the ‘feel-good’ sensation associated with Guyana becoming an oil-producing nation to some of the more sobering realities of the risks that attend oil recovery, discourse on the country’s oil and gas sector is drifting in the direction of what could go wrong, environmentally that is, and what the consequences might be for the country’s environmental profile.
Late last year the head of the country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr Vincent Adams, went on record as saying that a National Oil Spill Contingency Plan will be on stream by mid-2019. One of the most critical documents that is supposed to be in place for any emerging petroleum producer like Guyana, will be ready by mid-year.
We are however, at the beginning of April 2019, a juncture at which one would have thought, there may have been forthcoming, a definitive update regarding the state of readiness of the plan. Up to this time there hasn’t been any though both the local environmental body as well as oil and gas-related agencies including ExxonMobil itself, have gone on record as saying that the risk-mitigation efforts relating to an oil spill and the consequences that could flow therefrom, will be in place before the commencement of ‘first oil recovery.
Earlier this week, a sense of jitteriness surfaced at the level of local environmental watchers after the Civil Defence Commission confirmed that the Guyana Defence Force Coastguard had been dispatched to the Essequibo River to confirm whether or not the river was being polluted. Confirmation or otherwise of oil-related river pollution will doubtless raise the awareness temperature at the levels of officials, conservationists and the country as a whole.
On the other hand, there is no mistaking the opportunity which, even now, is being afforded Guyana to learn from the experiences of other countries that have long been sobered by repeated evidence of the consequences of major oil spills. Australia, for example, has only recently moved to “raise its protective fences” against what an Oil and Gas News report describes as “the high-risk environmental circumstances associated with offshore oil and gas activities” by demanding increased transparency for all environmental plans for such activities.
The report, monitored by the Stabroek Business says that apart from moving to build in “a safeguard pertaining to the requirement that all environmental plans be published,” the authorities there are also insisting that “draft environment plans for offshore seismic and exploration drilling activities be open for public comment under changes to environmental regulations.” The new requirements, the report says, are part of a suite of changes to improve and increase transparency of the country’s offshore petroleum work. The arrangement affords the public “a 30-day comment period to give feedback on the environmental management of proposed seismic exploration drilling activities.” It also seeks to build “new levels of accountability” into environmental safeguards taken against the backdrop of an official perspective that “Australians need to be confident that oil and gas activities being carried out offshore meet stringent environment regulations, and that all environmental risks and impacts of the proposed activity are taken into account.”
This is a policy position which, one expects, Guyana will hasten to arrive at sooner rather than later.
