President of ExxonMobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge, on Thursday, set out to clear up what he described as misconceptions that the oil and gas company has breached its Environmental Permit signed with the Government of Guyana.
At a press briefing on Thursday Routledge said that there has been a noticeable amount of misinformation and speculation in the media surrounding the company’s flaring of gas offshore Guyana due to a damaged Flash Gas Compression (FGC) system.
In the media, some experts, like former Environment and Protection Agency (EPA) Head, Dr. Vincent Adams, have criticised ExxonMobil for not utilising spare parts and for ramping up production to 130,000 bpd at the time of the malfunction. Others have also argued that the flaring of natural gas is prohibited in ExxonMobil’s Environmental Permit.
However, Routledge said that not only is the Company clear about its permit and is within its boundaries, but the Company has not exceeded any limits given to it. “We have very sound systems that enable us to track what are all those commitments and we’re absolutely certain that we’re within those,” he said.
Added to this, some parts of the media have reported that the Liza Phase One Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) only allows Exxon to flare up to 14 billion cubic feet of natural gas within 18 months of start-up. Though grilled about the matter by the media, Routledge maintained that the ‘14 billion’ figure is not permanent nor a minimum allowance. He said it was generated by a third-party consultant as a basis to provide a working ceiling figure during consultations as part of the EIA process.
“It was never to be either a limit or an allowance and we don’t view it as that. Our target every day is to be at pilot background flare of less than 1 million cubic feet per day. We’re below that 14 so, from an academic point of view, we’re not at that volume,” he explained.
Since the challenges of the equipment, the Company also announced on Thursday that the flash gas compressor from aboard the Liza Destiny FPSO has been repaired, successfully tested and is preparing for transport to Guyana.
Routledge described the issues experienced as “unusual” and “complex” for a compressor. Even so, he thanked Guyanese for remaining patient and expressed ExxonMobil’s commitment to resolving the issue.
“Thank you to the people of Guyana for their patience with what we’re dealing with. This is certainly not how we expect to operate…we have much higher expectations for the operations that we’re involved in and this has been incredibly frustrating,” Routledge said.
“We continue to work 24/7 to get the resolution of the issues so that we can have a long-term, highly efficient, reliable, dependable and environmentally sound operation on the Destiny and future projects too.”
