With an energy researcher warning of the potential environmental harm that could result from natural gas at Exxon’s Liza-1 project in the Stabroek Block, offshore Guyana, the company has assured that it has already implemented a leak detection and repair programme that utilises the latest technology.
“Regular and routine maintenance is important to ensure the safe and operational integrity of the offshore installations. We have comprehensive planned maintenance and inspection programmes based on the manufacturers’ recommendations and industry best practices. This will continue throughout the life of the projects,” the company said through its local Public and Government Affairs Advisor Janelle Persaud.
“Since start up, we have implemented what is called a leak detection and repair programme which allows us to identify and repair leaks using optical gas imaging cameras, thereby reducing leaks and other emissions. This is the latest technology for visualizing fugitive hydrocarbon leaks, and is successfully deployed across ExxonMobil global operations,” Persaud added.
ExxonMobil’s response was issued in reply to recommendations by physicist and energy researcher Dr Robert Kleinberg, who told Stabroek News that the company should prove it is using efficient gas flaring technology in oil operations offshore. He has also said that it is also imperative that both Guyana and the company have stringent measures in place to monitor for leaks from its equipment, as such emissions have stronger greenhouse effects.
“I would recommend that the equipment, as it ages, be monitored for leaks, which have a much stronger greenhouse gas effect than flaring,” Dr. Kleinberg said in an exclusive interview with this newspaper, as he pointed to a study of 45 gas compressor stations in the United States’ natural gas transmission and storage system.
In that study, published in 2015 by the American Chemical Society (ACS), of the 45 stations studied, two were found to be “super-emitters” of methane, the main component of natural gas, with leak rates much higher than expected.
Kleinberg, who has worked for over 40 years in the oil and gas industry and whose work centres on energy technology and economics, and on environmental issues connected with oil and gas development, said that whenever there is flaring it needs to be monitored and ExxonMobil should be asked to certify they are using the best available technology during the process.
ExxonMobil has had to pause reinjection of associated gases and resort to flaring because of compressor glitches offshore at its Liza-1 project and this has seen the flaring of more than nine billion cubic feet of natural gas over a six-month period.
On June 11th, the Sunday Stabroek had reported that as a result of persistent compressor problems, production at the Liza-1 had plummeted from 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) to between 25,000 and 30,000 barrels per day as the company restricted flaring to no more than 15 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
The decision followed reports by this newspaper in early May that glitches during production startup saw flaring of over two billion cubic feet of natural gas—a figure subsequently confirmed by Head of the Environmental Protection Agency Dr Vincent Adams to be over nine billion cubic feet—even as the company had assured that it would have from that week begin transitioning to using the gas for well injection purposes.
On June 16th, Exxon said that having fixed issues with two of its three gas handling systems thereby using 85% of associated gas from the reservoir, it had further reduced flaring at its offshore Liza-1 well project and had started to again ramp up production.
ExxonMobil’s large volume of flaring is being monitored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as the organization said that the company must play its part in decreasing emissions. Global environmental and human rights organization; the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and researchers and environmental watchdogs have all said that the flaring will significantly impact this country’s 2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
According to Guyana’s 2018 Measure-ment, Reporting and Verification (MRV) report under the forest protection pact, this country lost 9,227 hectares of forest that year. The CO2 equivalent emissions from ExxonMobil’s nine billion cubic feet of gas flaring would be equivalent to 4,642 hectares of deforestation or more than half of this country’s annual total.
‘Capturing lessons’
According to the EPA’s latest update, flaring has gone down to 12 million cubic feet per day and it is hoped that by the end of this month operations would be back to normal and flaring ceased.
In ExxonMobil’s response to this newspaper on Kleinberg’s comments, Persaud said that “the gas compression equipment is being repaired as we seek to safely complete final commissioning of the gas handling system. Key specialist technicians required to repair the equipment have been mobilized.”
The company reiterated previous statements and said that flaring is not a plan for its routine operations here and it was only for the commissioning aspect of operations. In addition, it said lessons learnt from this stage will only improve the works on other projects.
“We are currently still in the start-up period for Liza Phase 1 which involves temporary flaring to fully commission the gas compression and injection systems for safe operations as outlined in the approved environmental impact assessment and permit. Once we have achieved that, we will not be (doing) routine flaring except as a safety mechanism during an unexpected incident or maintenance,” the company said.
“Here in Guyana and across our global operations, ExxonMobil has systems, processes and procedures in place to improve operations integrity, thus reducing downtime and upsets that can result in flaring. Additionally, we are capturing lessons learned during this startup period that we can apply to the Liza Unity and other projects moving forward,” Persaud said.
ExxonMobil is still to develop some 14 other wells in the 0.6 million acres (26,800 square kilometers) Stabroek Block area, which holds a combined total of over approximately 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Kleinberg, the Principal of Presidio Energy Technology and adjunct senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy of Columbia University, who has authored more than 120 academic and professional papers and holds 41 U.S. patents, says that the company must show its plan for detecting compressor problems and leaks. “ExxonMobil should have a plan for detecting and repairing compressor leaks and other equipment breakdowns that will arise in the future, without having to resume excessive levels of flaring,” he said.
‘Commitment’
Kleinberg believes that Guyana’s offshore deep terrain can make compression difficult.
“From a technical standpoint, this [compression glitches] is not very surprising. The Liza field is very deep, which makes gas compression challenging,” he said.
But he believes that “there is no question ExxonMobil is capable of deploying adequate gas compression systems to solve the present problem.”
He reminded that ExxonMobil is a member of the Methane Guiding Prin-ciples (MGP) organization.
In an effort to reduce methane emissions globally, the MGP was formed and in 2017 a set of Methane Guiding Principles were developed collaboratively by a coalition of industry, international institutions, non-governmental organisations and academics to guide their work. The organsisation’s website states that it is “a voluntary, international multi-stakeholder partnership between industry and non-industry organisations with a focus on priority areas for action across the natural gas supply chain, from production to the final consumer.”
Noting that Exxon is a founding member of the MGP, Persaud said it demonstrates the company’s commitment to mitigating its environmental footprint. “Since 2000, ExxonMobil has invested nearly $10 billion in projects to research, develop and deploy lower-emission energy solutions. The company also continues to expand collaborative efforts with more than 80 universities around the world to explore next-generation energy technologies,” she said.
“Our commitment to minimizing the environmental impact of projects here in Guyana is reflected by the design of the Liza Destiny and Liza Phase 1 project, which does not utilize routine flaring. The Liza Phase 1 project design eliminates routine flaring by using produced gas to power the floating production, storage and offloading vessel and by reinjecting gas into the reservoir to conserve the gas and to improve oil recovery, thereby reducing emissions compared with traditional methods,” she added.
