The process for the submission of comments and objections concerning the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for ExxonMobil’s Yellowtail Development Project concluded over one month ago but the EPA remains silent as to what the next step will be.
The Yellowtail project is ExxonMobil and partners’, fourth development in the Stabroek Block and is considered the largest undertaking since Guyana became an oil-producing nation. As part of the Yellowtail Project, ExxonMobil plans to drill between 40 and 67 wells for the 20-year duration of the investment. Over 250,000 barrels of oil per day will be targeted once production commences. Based on the schedule, once approval is granted, engineering commences in 2022 and production in the latter part of 2025.
Exxon, through the consulting firm Environmental Resource Management (ERM), applied to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for an environmental permit to operate in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana. They have since submitted the EIA and other ancillary documents as part of the process and also held public consultations.
The public consultation process saw ERM attempt to answer questions and clarify aspects of the EIA for stakeholders but it also saw them failing to treat with certain questions.
A number of environmentalists and groups submitted objections to the EIA noting that the company had failed to address various impacts on the environment. Also, questions were raised about ERM’s ties to Exxon since it is the same company that did all of Exxon’s EIAs here. The environmentalists and groups have also issued calls for the scrapping of the EIA.
The EPA did acknowledge receipt of the objections but is yet to inform as to the next step in the process. Environmentalist Simone Mangal-Joly who submitted objections on behalf of an alliance of Caribbean organisations did confirm that no word, other than an acknowledgement of receipt, was sent out by the EPA.
Several efforts by Stabroek News to contact EPA’s head Kemraj Parsram were unsuccessful.
In a December 15, 2021 letter to Environmental Assessment Board (EAB) Chairman Omkar Lochan, environmentalist Mangal-Joly, on behalf of the Caribbean Coastal Area Management (C-CAM) Foundation, The Jamaica Fish Sanctuary Network, the Jamaica Environment Trust, the Institute for Small Islands, Fishermen and Friends of the Sea, and Freedom Imaginaries, also says that the EIA is “significantly deficient” as it fails to establish a baseline economic value of the coastal areas of the Caribbean, including Guyana.
“We, therefore, call on the EPA to reject the EIA until minimum guarantees are established in Guyana,” Mangal-Joly added in the letter.
The EPA is also being accused of acting in contravention of the recently ratified Escazú Agreement which guarantees “the right to access environmental information and participate in environmental decision-making, thereby promoting access to information and access to justice related to environmental matters.”
