President unveils big gas plans
President Irfaan Ali yesterday opened the Guyana Energy Conference and Supply Chain Expo and unveiled big plans for the country’s nascent gas industry including exports to CARICOM.
Speaking at the Marriott Hotel where the conference is being held under the theme ‘Fueling Transformation and Modernization’, Ali unfolded varying parts of a master plan for the country’s oil and gas which include supply and logistics. According to Ali, at full capacity Guyana is looking to supply Caricom’s gas needs.
Ali stressed that the conference is one that is different from last year’s noting that importantly the supply chain was added to the conference. Ali said that the role of investment in the logistics and transport system will be important in the building of Guyana’s economy as well as ensuring it is integrated within the region – CARICOM, South America and the Dominican Republic, etc.
According to the President, there can be massive energy potential, however, that will only be translated into value if there is a market “and if we can define our market space within the region ourselves then it points to very low hanging fruits but we have to build the infrastructure to facilitate this, to facilitate the movement, to facilitate the trade and to facilitate the integration and that is what we are focusing on in the logistic build up how do we build out this eco system to support the energy development.”
Noting the ongoing gas to energy project with the 250 kilometer pipeline from the Floating Production, Storage and Offloading platform to deliver phase one gas which is going to be 40% of the pipeline capacity, Ali noted that for the first phase they are looking at a power and Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) plant, “a 300 megawatt combined
cycle and NGL facility.” He said, another investment which is critical to that project is the 85 kilometers of transmission line, three new substations and the upgrading of the present substations.
Ali stressed that the future depends on reliable, efficient energy which currently is not available in Guyana. The country currently also does not have the quantum of energy which is needed to drive the industrialization and manufacturing that is critically needed for Guyana’s development.
“So this project is extremely critical to give us the efficiency, the reliability but importantly it gives us the opportunity to be competitive because at the end of this project the cost of energy will be reduced by 50% and that then puts us in the game for manufacturing, agro processing and industrial development”, he asserted.
Ali said the pipeline which is an investment of about US $1b will come in in the fourth quarter of 2024, “we have an investment in the power plant, the NGL facility and the power plant is a combined cycle of US$759m and the transmission line substation of US$160m.”
He said that outside of the first gas supply which is the 40% of the pipeline that will come in, that will focus on this 300megawatt power facility. “Based on pure interest by investors we are already seeing that the second phase of gas coming in will have to support a second power plant, that is based on the interest, just the interest in manufacturing, in industrial development, in agro processing, the growth in the demand of power is going to be enormous because we are going to propel that growth by the fiscal incentive regime, and the investment drive we are going to push forward for manufacturing, industrial development and agro processing”, the President said.
He added, “so in the first phase of gas, that is the 40% capacity of the pipeline you are looking at 4,000 barrels of propane retained per day… Our local consumption now is 800 barrels per day so we will be producing at least 4,000 barrels and that is in phase one, immediately we have 3,200 barrels available for export, this has to be moved, this has to be transported and here is where the bridge link to Suriname across the Corentyne River is key and critical.”
Excess
Ali said that this is why his government is pushing