90% of equipment for GtE project already in Guyana – LINDSAYCA Guyana Inc Chairman

…68% of work on facility complete

Chairman of LINDSAYCA Guyana Inc., Nelson Drake, on Wednesday noted that 90 percent of the equipment for the Gas to Energy (GtE) Project in Wales, West Bank Demerara (WBD) is currently in Guyana, with some 68.3 percent of the work on the facility complete.
Delivering a keynote address at the International Business Conference (IBC) on Wednesday, Drake informed that the prefabricated components of the Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) process facility is also 100 percent complete.
However this component still remains to be shipped to Guyana due to lack of storage space for any further equipment at this time. The component is expected to be shipped before the end of the year.
“Today, we are at 68.3% [completion]: 89% of the engineering is done, 90.46% of the procurement is done, and only 23% of the construction is done. A lot of people would look at this and say this is backwards. Usually the civil work is done and they’re waiting to get the equipment. Today over 75% of the equipment is in Georgetown; the turbines, the horse skids, the vests all of it is in Georgetown,” Drake explained.
“All major equipment is on site. Turbines are in Georgetown, transformers are in Georgetown, the cooling towers are in Georgetown, the chemical feed skids, 90% of everything is in Georgetown. The LNG process facility is 100% done. It’s in Houston, it’s going to ship. Why hasn’t it been shipped? We have no room to store it. We can’t put it at the site and the port is full. So we need to manage that – by the end or before Christmas everything will be on site. The only thing that won’t be on site is what you cannot preserve on site and whatever it gets in the way of the execution plan.”
The assemblage of the equipment is currently awaiting the completion of the foundation upon which the facility will be resting. However, Drake explained, this involves a lot of intricate work.
“Those foundations have been done. The thing about this foundation is you have to pour them at night because they’re so massive. We actually put sensors in the rebar and we measure the temperature throughout the evening. Usually start at 5 – 6 o’ clock in the afternoon and finish up at 3 – 4 o’ clock in the morning,” Drake noted.
Guyana has a US$759 million contract with Lindsayca to build the GTE Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) facility and the 300-megawatt (MW) combined cycle power plant at Wales. The components are being assembled at the company’s factory in Houston Texas.
“Everything is built like a Lego. It is done in Houston in a controlled environment. This saves you a lot of time. A lot of people don’t understand that you rather spend your money manufacturing in an enclosed environment controlled environment. Don’t do it in the field. Everything in the field is more expensive,” Drake explained.
The GtE project consists of five key components: laying the pipeline to bring the gas onshore, constructing the power plant and NGL facility, installing transmission lines, building a new control centre, and upgrading the aged power distribution system.
ExxonMobil, along with its co-ventures are operating the oil-rich Stabroek Block offshore have laid 250 kilometres of 12-inch pipelines that will bring the gas onshore.
Pouring of concrete for the foundation of the first gas turbine at the GTE began last month, with the project now scheduled to come on stream in 2026. Initially, the project was scheduled to be completed by 2024 year-end but following setbacks in handing over some components including site preparation works, particularly stabilisation of the soil.
On Wednesday, Drake explained that given the technical nature of the project, waiting on the soil stabilisation to be completed was absolutely imperative. This took 14 months, and US$100 million.
“You can throw as much money as you want on a site but the land is going to react the way the land reacts. So you have to wait until it is completely stable before you can start building this very expensive, very delicate equipment. That’s why we’re behind. It took 14 months to stabilise and over US$100 million,” Drake noted.
“The land over on that side of the river has a very rare mix of sands…you had a liquefaction going on at the site. That means the site is not fit for construction. The equipment that we’re putting on the site is basically a gas process facility, which can easily become a bomb at any time if it is not done properly, and also the Siemens turbine and the power island have to be perfectly aligned. There’s no tolerance here for that land to move. Therefore, you have to stabilise, consolidate, and de-water the land. So we used top of the line technology and we spent over US$100 million stabilising that.”
Upon completion, the project is expected to substantially lower electricity generation costs, which have significant benefits for the Guyanese economy, fostering more competitive production costs and stimulating broader economic growth. ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) has already finished constructing the gas pipeline, and the transmission lines and substations required for integration of the project are significantly advanced, with completion anticipated later this year.