Attorney-at-Law Elizabeth Deane-Hughes has written to both the President of ExxonMobil Guyana and the Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requesting that the planned public consultation for the gas-to-power project be halted until the expiry of the mandatory 60 days comments/objections period.
Deane-Hughes, in identical letters addressed to Exxon’s Alistair Routledge and the EPA’s Kemraj Parsram, highlighted a number of concerns with the proposed consultations for the gas-to-power project.
On April 20, ExxonMobil through its consultant Environmental Resource Management (ERM) submitted the environmental study for the US$1.3b gas-to-shore project which the government hopes will lead to vastly lower energy costs that would enable a spurt in manufacturing. There have been doubts over the country’s execution capacity and whether a feasibility study has been done for this massive project which would be the biggest in the country’s history.
The submission of the environmental study has triggered the 60-day public review process. In accordance with Section 11 (10) of the Environmental Protection Act, Cap. 20:05, members of the public can review the EIA and make written submissions to the Environmental Protection Agency, as they consider appropriate. All submissions are to be addressed to the Executive Director of the EPA and sent to the Ganges Street, Sophia office or emailed to epa@epaguyana.org.
Exxon, through public notices in the press, advertised that face-to-face sessions will be held with information on the gas-to-energy project, the EPA environmental authorization process and the findings from the assessment to “support public awareness.” In total, there are 11 such sessions scheduled.
The first session is scheduled for Lachmansingh Primary School, West Coast Berbice on Monday, May 9, 2022, at 10 am with the final session at Patentia Primary, West Bank Demerara on May 20.
In a statement, Deane-Hughes said that she is seeking a moratorium on the consultations to facilitate the filing of concerns as specified by the Environment Protection Act. She added that citizens should be allowed, uninterrupted, the time to comb through the voluminous document and then raise their concerns.
“…[the PR campaign] adds nothing to the already submitted EIA&EIS but may act as a distraction factor and even muddy the waters of good intentions. EEPGL and/or ExxonMobil is not in a competitive process for the issuance of permits for the gas-to-energy pipeline so a mere postponement will not affect the decision made. In fact, if they chose to conduct their campaign in the June-August 2022 period this can be comprehended as a sign of respect and goodwill for the people of Guyana, a country where they are concentrating their current future developments and investments inter alia,” her statement said.
Deane-Hughes said though Exxon claims to have conducted consultations in Regions 1-6, none of those was done in Canal #1, WBD – a community that stands to be impacted by the pipelines.
“We also have protection under the ambit of the EP-Act which has been violated. These omissions along with other glaring implementation of plans errors call into question the validity of the entire document as well as question the sincerity of their CSR,” she said.
Additionally, the attorney argued that if an alternative route with the pipeline landing at Leonora and running along the Boerasirie dam owned by the Government of Guyana, is used then there will be no need to acquire private property. She, however, did not provide a source of this information and efforts to contact her yesterday were futile.
The pipeline is expected to land at Crane/Nouvelle Flanders, West Coast Demerara and make its way to Wales on the West Bank of the Demerara. The project will involve capturing associated gas produced from crude oil production operations on the Liza Phase 1 (Destiny) and Liza Phase 2 (Unity) Floating, Production, Storage, and Offloading (FPSO) vessels, transporting approximately 50 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscfd; 1.4 million standard cubic meters per day [MMsm3/d]) of gas via a subsea pipeline and then an onshore pipeline to a natural gas liquids (NGL) processing plant (NGL Plant), treating the gas to remove NGLs for sale to third parties, and ultimately delivering dry gas meeting government specifications for use at the Power Plant.
The project includes the construction and operation of a natural gas pipeline from the Liza Phase 1 (Destiny) and Liza Phase 2 (Unity) FPSO vessels via a subsea line and then an onshore natural gas pipeline to an onshore NGL Plant. The pipeline will transport up to approximately 50 MMscfd of dry gas to the NGL Plant. The NGL Plant will drop the pressure of the gas; dehydrate the gas; separate out the NGLs (i.e., propane, butane, and pentanes+) for sale to third parties; and treat the remaining “dry” gas to the specifications appropriate for use as fuel or raw materials by third parties.
In her letters to both Routledge and Parsram, Deane-Hughes said that delaying the process would neither add nor take away from Exxon’s position of attainment. She also argued that the EIA document fails to assess the impacts landowners and residents in the direct vicinity will suffer.
