Gas-to-shore project: Govt pursuing consensual agreement with landowners

The Guyana Government continues to engage landowners in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), who will be required to give up their lands in order to facilitate the pipelines of the gas-to-shore project, and according to Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, all efforts will be undertaken to ensure that consensual agreements are made with the residents.

This commitment followed another meeting last weekend with a group of landowners, this time from along the West Bank of Demerara (WBD), to begin negotiations. The meeting was held at the Belle West Multi-Purpose Centre, WBD.
During his weekly programme, Issues In The News, AG Nandlall on Tuesday evening posited that these negotiations would end in the consensual acquisition of the lands.
“As a Government, we pledge to ensure that we work with every single landowner to arrive at a consensual position: respecting their proprietary interest, respecting the value for their land, ensuring that they are adequately and properly compensated, and, most importantly, ensure that we arrive at consensual positions, amicable resolutions as the State doesn’t wish to exercise its powers under the Doctrine of Eminent Domain and seize anybody’s land using any form of force or appropriating mechanisms.
“We prefer to separate every single citizen, work out an arrangement that they find acceptable – if they want money, they will get money; if they want alternative lands, they will get alternative lands, so, we want to arrive at consensual positions,” he stressed.
It was for this reason, the Attorney General explained, that the law was changed to make the State responsible and not investors for recovering private lands from citizens for developmental projects in the oil and gas sector.
“We felt that no investor would take the care that the Government would and no investor would exercise the patience that the Government would in ensuring that these people’s rights are respected and to ensure that we arrive at amicable resolutions in relation to these transactions. The Government took on that power legally and is discharging that power, and I dare say, is discharging it well, and to the satisfaction, most importantly, of the persons whose proprietary interests are affected,” Nandlall noted.
The path that has to be cleared for the pipelines is in the vicinity of Nouvelle Flanders, West Coast Demerara, to Wales, WBD.
Already, Government has met with the West Coast landowners and a team of lawyers was put together to negotiate with each property owner or their legal representative to reach an agreement.
The gas-to-shore project, which is pegged at more than US$1 billion, will feature approximately 220 kilometres of a subsea pipeline offshore from the Liza Destiny and Liza Unity Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels in the Stabroek Block to onshore.
Upon landing on the West Coast Demerara shore, the pipeline will continue for approximately 25 kilometres to the Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) plant to be constructed at Wales. The pipeline would be 12 inches in diameter and is expected to transport some 50 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of dry gas to the NGL Plant, but has the capacity to push as much 120 mmscfd.
The main feature of the gas-to-shore initiative is a power plant that will generate 250 to 300 megawatts of power using natural gas from offshore, which will significantly reduce the cost of electricity in Guyana.
The aim is to deliver rich gas by the end of 2024 for the power plant while the NGL facility is slated to be online by 2025.
The gas-to-shore project, which has a 25-year lifespan, is expected to employ up to 800 workers during the peak construction stage, as well as some 40 full-time workers during the operations stage, and another 50 workers during the decommissioning stage.
According to AG Nandlall, this billion-dollar project is transformational not only for Guyana but the Caribbean and Latin American region as well.
“This is, by no means or measure, a small project. This is one of the largest undertakings to be executed in the Caribbean region, one of the largest investments in decades to be executed in the Caribbean region. And therefore, that is why we have to ensure that nothing stands in the way of this project. The investors are investing billions of dollars here and the Government has to work with the investor to ensure that the project becomes a reality, and who will benefit the most from the project – the ordinary Guyanese. It is intended to reduce the cost of energy, the cost of cooking gas, the cost of natural gas to a fraction of what it currently is,” Nandlall said.
Currently, Guyana, Suriname, and Brazil are in talks on the establishment of an energy corridor and unlocking the potential for a series of manufacturing and industrial developments. Other Caribbean nations, such as Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, are also looking to tap into this initiative. (G8)