…to cut cooking gas imports, slash electricity costs by 50%
Unprecedented transformation will lead to a booming hub in the once sugar-driven community of Wales on the West Bank of Demerara (WBD), thus creating ripples of employment and benefits for the entire country when the gas-to-shore project comes on stream.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo made this announcement during a Cabinet outreach to Canal Number One Polder on Friday, where he was accompanied by several Ministers of Government.
The gas-to-shore project includes the construction and operation of the pipeline from the Exxon-operated Stabroek Block offshore Guyana to the onshore NGL plant. A second component of the project will be a power plant that will be constructed by the Guyana Government and will use the gas produced to generate electricity to feed into the national grid.
The Vice President stated that the supplementary industries will come on stream, thus allowing for thousands of employment opportunities for locals. Moreover, the Government will be in a position to slash electricity costs by 50 per cent and cut its importation of cooking gas.
“The PPP works for Guyana. Every time it has been in office, it works for all of our people. We have a plan for every region…It will create thousands of jobs because once this comes in, a whole range of industries is going to move to the Wales Industrial Estate. We’re bringing in 50 million cubic feet of gas to generate 250 to 300 megawatts of power.”
He added, “That should come in 2024. When it comes in, it would allow us to drop the price of electricity by 50 per cent, which will make a big difference to industries and people’s lives.”
Jagdeo opined that government is keen on keeping its promises and working beyond what was promised in the manifesto. He has assured that the electricity woes will end, as this power generation through this plant will transform the stability of power in the country.
“This side of the river shall be like the other side. This project will make a big difference. We have already started building the infrastructure to take the equipment, dredge the river coming in so that the vessels can come in.”
With a timetable to deliver rich gas by the end of 2024 and the NGL plant to be online by 2025, works are progressing on getting the project off the ground. As such, during the first half of this year, Exxon was expected to source the materials and pipelines, so that they are available for when construction starts later this year.
The scope of the US$900 million gas-to-shore project consists of the construction of 225 kilometres of pipelines from the Liza field in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, where Exxon and its partners are currently producing oil.
It features approximately 220 kilometres of a subsea pipeline offshore that will run from the Liza Destiny and Unity Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels in the Stabroek Block to the shore. Upon landing on the West Coast Demerara shore, the pipeline will continue approximately 25 kilometres to the NGL plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara.
The pipeline would be 12 inches wide and is expected to transport some 50 million standard cubic feet per day (mscfpd) of dry gas to the NGL plant, but has the capacity to push as much as 120 mscfpd.
The pipeline’s route onshore will follow the same path as the fibreoptic cables and will terminate at Hermitage, part of the Wales Development Zone (WDZ) which will house the gas-to-shore project. The Guyana Government has invited interested parties to make investments in the WDZ, which will be heavily industrialised and for which approximately 150 acres of land have been allocated. Those lands were previously used by the Wales Sugar Estate.
The other component of the project is the construction of a combined cycle power plant that will generate up to 300 megawatts (MW) of power with a net 250 MW delivered into the Guyana Power and Light grid at a sub-station located on the East Bank of the Demerara River.
ExxonMobil Guyana, which is funding the pipeline aspect of the project out of cost oil, has found that there would be substantial savings from combining these two facilities. Hence, it was agreed that the power plant and the NGL plant be done as a combined Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) process.
