Dear Editor,
The Gas to Shore pipeline numbers do not add up. In a recent news article, Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo was quoted as saying “So the 50 million cubic feet of gas will allow us to do 250 megawatts of power and have additional gas that will remain for other purposes such as urea, protein for the agriculture sector, et cetera.” Also in this week’s news, the Opposition’s Shadow Minister for Oil and Gas, Mr. David Patterson was quoted as saying inter alia “…the PPP has presented a proposal to install an LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) plant which it claims will produce approx. 3,400 barrels a day.” “…What should be of great interest to the Guyanese public is that using these same studies the Coalition government planned to deliver a project that produced 188MW of power plus 2,200 barrels of LNG daily. Patterson noted too that the Coalition had based its decision to utilise the lower quantity of 30 million cubic feet of gas per day.” (I believe that he meant LPG and not LNG).
In order to analyse the above information, one first needs to reduce these numbers to a common denominator so that we can determine the feasibility of this project. To do this, I will use Barrel of Oil Equivalent (BOE); “In terms of volume, oil is represented per barrel, and natural gas is represented per thousand cubic feet (mcf). One Mcf of natural gas contains approximately one-sixth of the energy of a barrel of oil; therefore, 6,000 cubic feet of natural gas (6 Mcf) have the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil” (Investopedia.com).
Evaluating the Opposition numbers: 30 million cubic feet of gas per day would be equal to (30,000,000 / 6,000) = 5,000 BOE per day. To determine the gas available for power generation, we need to subtract the 2,200 BOE of LPG per day (5,000 – 2,200) = 2,800 BOE per day. To determine the gas required for power generation, I would use the current minimum specific fuel consumption of GPL’s newest and most efficient power plant at Vreed-en-Hoop. That plant has a specific fuel consumption of 45 imperial gallons per Mw-hour. Since one barrel is equal to 34.97 imperial gallons, then 45/34.97 = 1.29 barrels of Heavy fuel oil per Mwh. This would be equivalent of 1.29 BOE/Mwh.
The BOE of gas required to operate the power plant with a capacity factor of 75% would therefore be (188 MW X 24 hours X 75% X 1.29 BOE/Mwh) = 4,365.36 BOE of gas per day.
This means that there would be a short fall of (4,365 – 2,800) = 1,565 BOE of gas per day or (1,565 X 6,000) = 9,390,000 standard cubic foot of gas per day.
Therefore, the Opposition would have required 39 million cubic feet of gas per day to operate the plant they had proposed.
Evaluating the Government numbers:
50 million cubic feet of gas per day would be equal to (50,000,000 / 6,000) = 8,333 BOE gas per day.
Gas available for power generation (8,333 – 3,400) = 4,933 BOE gas per day.
Gas required for power generation (250 MW X 24 hours X 75% X 1.29BOE/Mwh) = 5,805 BOE gas per day.
This means there would be a shortfall of (5,805 – 4,933) = 872 BOE gas per day or (872 X 6,000) =5,232,000 cubic feet of gas per day.
Therefore, the Government would require 55 million cubic feet of gas per day for power generation and LPG production and would also need to seek to increase the amount of gas supplied if they want to have additional gas available for other purposes such as urea, protein for the agriculture sector, et cetera.
Editor, it is clear from the above analysis that both the Opposition and the Government have made significant errors in their calculations for the proposed Gas to Shore project. One also must question the accuracy of the studies that the Government is now using to justify this project. It should be noted also that to date ExxonMobil has not published the composition of the associated gasses and it is therefore difficult to verify the accuracy of some of the information, for example the amount of LPG available. The opposition has 44% (2,200/5,000 X100) and the government has 41% (3,400/8,333 X100). While these numbers are close, the percentage of LPG (propane and butane) seems high compared to published data.
Sincerely,
Tara Singh
