Guyana’s Gas to Energy – Really! What’s the rush?

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Dear Editor,

Further to hundreds of unacknowledged and unanswered questions to ExxonMobil Guyana, EPA, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, MNRE, GLSC, inter alia: April 2022 – January 2023, I am left to appeal to the public through this letter.

The hereunder is to be read in the stage lights of the scene of “Imagination is more important than knowledge”.

It has been reported that Guyana Power and Gas Inc signed a contract with Engineers India Limited (EIL), one of the consultancies on the GtE Project. Assuming Guyana Power and Gas Inc is not a typo. Whether it is or is not is irrelevant for this letter as the legal process and procedure for this Guyana Power and Gas Inc to sign on behalf of the GoG is beyond the scope of this letter. Imagine!

This is an appeal to people of courage and/or brave hearts to act against the implementation of the Gas to Energy (GtE) project in its current format. The lack of adherence to and respect for the laws of Guyana if taken to its logical end perhaps can head the state of Guyana into a constitutional crisis. At some stage “anything can happen” which laws are more equal than which? The lawlessness is happening before the fact of an implemented GtE project. This is the first project in Guyana’s upcoming nascent start-up gas sector, part of the oil and gas industry. Look at the oil sector and the amount of environmental, legal and other challenges.  Imagine!

Just to highlight a few examples of the aforesaid lawlessness-

1. Sections 11 & 36 are just a couple of the many sections of the Environmental Protection Act not adhered to nor followed
2. Residents in Area of Influence (AoI), next to the pipeline were not consulted before the submission of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) nor have been to date. These residents wrote a joint letter to EPA asking that the EIA be repudiated, recalled, etc before the deadline submission date, 18 June 2022. These residents are also landowners in the right of way (RoW) whose private property is being acquired under the law of Act 13 of 1957. The property values in the fastest growing Guyana, from oil, has been evidenced by the gifted around 1.5 acres to the Guyana Harbour Bridge Project.
3. The request from the Head of Oil and Gas Section and Head of the Legal Section at EPA project application for the power plant is still ongoing. There is no listing on the EPA website.
4. Section 17 Regulations 2000 of the Environmental Protection Act whereby EEPGL on behalf of Stabroek Block Partners needed to have acquired the pipeline route before submission of the Environmental Impact Assessment. The Environmental Impact Assessment forms the basis on which an Environmental Permit is granted.
5. There is no public feasibility study for any gas project with a 25km on-shore pipeline. Kindly note none of the outdated studies listed under the GtE project on MNRE website, has an on-shore pipeline of twenty five kilometers. Would this length of pipeline have an effect on the financials of the project?
6. Imagine!

Under the ambit of the legal jurisprudential principle ” Ignorance of the law is no excuse” the Permit Holder, on behalf of the Stabroek was asked. Imagine!

What is the rush? If this project with its onshore pipeline length is indeed feasible in 2023 then with all the other gas fields not included in the GtE project it will be so in 2025 and beyond. Imagine!

With a mega project this big $2 Billion and mounting, how do you think Guyana’s other large projects Skeldon and CJIA would pail? Imagine!

There have been a series of silly human errors made, the 18 June 2022 GtE closing date for submission notice which had to have been rectified and reprinted and the NPTB’s inaccurate description of the NGL plant submission, just to highlight a few. It’s unclear if this is carelessness, negligence, lawlessness or else. What duty of care is being given to the bigger, technical and other areas that pose a real danger to people, life and property. Imagine!

Would you prefer any and/or all of the following:

• A feasibility study for the locations where the NGL and Power Plants are to be located?
• A Gas Strategy? A Gas Policy? A Gas Management & Implementation Plan? Any other Gas Plan?
• Legislation – implemented eg. National Gas Management/Integrity Plan and others, Regulatory Framework, Operational Framework, Implementation Framework, inter alia?
• Imagine!

The judgement in Radzik et al v EPA et al was a real Imagine!

Let’s resist this current GtE Project’s implementation process and procedure before ” there (is) no one left to speak” out!

Let’s get up and stand up for our assets & legacy!

Yours truly,

Liz Deane-Hughes

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