Guyana pushing ahead with plans to monetise natural gas

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC):

The government is moving ahead with its plans to monetise its natural gas resources found within the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, as part of its efforts to generate cheaper energy and create other products.

This is according to the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, who is also the vice president.

“We believe we can monetise our gas [and] we can do it through various sources. We can ship it out to an LNG floating platform; that’s one option. We can bring the gas onshore to a bigger pipeline, not the 12 inches, and then use it to generate power,” said Jagdeo, who was speaking during a recent press conference.

He said this generated power using natural gas, can be marketed to Northern Brazil, which is currently purchasing from Venezuela.

“That’s a very lucrative venture. We can then use it for [the] petrochemical industry, so we believe that there is [a] big use for the gas.”

In January, President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali announced the government’s plans to accelerate the monetisation of the country’s gas resources estimated at 17 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and would request proposals for this purpose.

In March, the general secretary revealed that the Ministry of Natural Resources was reviewing Expression of Interest (EIOs) for a model to help Guyana monetise gas assets.

“They have had some really good firms with good credentials that said, “we believe there is a viable project and we want to work on it” … they have selected a company now, the evaluators … that company will now have to sit down with ExxonMobil,” he said.

“Parallel to that, we had some discussions with Exxon … and we said, if you’re not moving forward, you got to relinquish. So, they did some studies and they said we believe we may be able to move forward with a project.”

Even if ExxonMobil is unable to move forward with the project, the general secretary said other prolific companies may be willing to go ahead with the gas monetisation.

In October 2023, a draft of the Guyana Gas Monetization Strategy was released for public consultation and according to Jagdeo, the Natural Resource Ministry is now working alongside a consultant to finalise that document, which is integral to the gas monetisation plans.

The draft strategy lists various monetisation options, such as using natural gas for power generation and producing methanol, liquefied natural gas (LNG), ammonia/urea, and blue ammonia/hydrogen.

Guyana began oil production in 2019 in the Stabroek Block offshore and in addition to oil, the block also contains recoverable natural gas resources.