Trinidad offers to refine Guyana’s crude oil

GUYANA - As crude oil production continues to decline, state-owned oil company Petrotrin has signaled the possibility of refining crude oil which was discovered in Guyanese waters recently, Trinidad’s Newsday yesterday reported.

In 2016, US-based multinational energy company ExxonMobil Corp. announced an oil discovery in the Liza field, some 193 kilometers just off the coast of Guyana, which may hold as much as 1.4 billion barrels of crude. In a media release, Petrotrin said the company was open to the possibility of “further developing business relations with fellow energy companies in neighboring Guyana” and, as if to emphasize its experience in the oil industry, noted that the company had accumulated “significant experience and expertise in the refining business in the Caribbean as its Pointe-aPierre refinery this year celebrates its 100th anniversary.” “Following the completion of the Gasoline Optimisation Programme (GOP) at the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery in 2015, the refinery has resumed high throughput operations consistent with its capacity of 168,000 bpd (barrels per day),” Petrotrin said. Guyana has already announced plans to prepare in a big way for the oil production activities that will take place in ExxonMobil’s concessions, located just over 100 miles offshore Guyana. In addition to training and drafting of new laws, an onshore site to provide services has been approved for Crab Island, East Bank Berbice. Several countries have come on board, offering help to Guyana to prepare for oil production, which is expected to commence as early as 2020.

(kaieteurnews.com)