Gas-to-Shore project: Upgrades to GPL grid to be completed by 2024 – Project Manager

…in time for completion of pipeline, 1st phase of NGL plant

Upgrades to the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) grid that will be necessary for energy from the gas-to-shore project to be integrated into the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS), will be completed by 2024.
This was according to ExxonMobil’s Gas to Shore Manager Friedrich Krispin, when he delivered remarks during the recently concluded Guyana Basin Summit (GBS) that was held at the Pegasus Hotel.

According to Krispin, Exxon subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) has been collaborating with the Government to ensure that the necessary specifications are in place for the project to work.
“We have been working with Government to ensure that a distribution system is obviously completed and upgraded by the time this is ready. The Government actually has a contractor doing the engineering for the upgrades to the grid. And they intend to finish that by the end of 2024,” Krispin explained.
“The plant will actually have a substation and it will actually have a high voltage cable that is supposed to go across the Demerara River, into where Garden of Eden is. And that’s where the tie in will happen. And then it will get distributed from there. What happens after that is under the purview of GPL and they will have to figure out what upgrades are necessary for the grid to carry all of this.”
The schedule for the completion of the upgrades to the grid will be in tandem with the scheduled completion of other components of the project, such as the pipeline and the first phase of the Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) plant. According to Krispin, these will be completed in 2024.
“We expect the construction to take about three years. That clock was started about six months ago or so, when we decided to invest in the project. And then therefore we’re going to be targeting to complete the pipeline by the end of 2024 and at the same time the Government has committed to build a power plant in an integrated manger with an NGL plant,” he explained.

Gas-to-Shore
Procurement has already been started by the Government of Guyana for the gas-to-shore project. With a timetable to deliver rich gas by the end of 2024 and the Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) plant to be online by 2025, works are progressing on getting the project off the ground. As such, during the first half of this year, Exxon was expected to source the materials and pipeline, so that they are available for when construction starts later this year.
The project will have a 25-year lifespan and 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.
The gas-to-shore project will include a power plant and a NGL plant, all of which will be constructed within the Wales Development Zone (WDZ). When it comes to the construction of a combined cycle power plant, this will generate up to 300 megawatts (MW) of power, with a net 250MW delivered into the Guyana Power and Light Grid at a sub-station located on the East Bank of the Demerara River.
The Guyana Government has already invited interested parties to make investments in the WDZ, which will be heavily industrialised and for which approximately 150 acres of land have been allocated. Those lands were previously used by the Wales Sugar Estate.
Head of the Gas-to-Shore Task Force, Winston Brassington has previously stated that ExxonMobil Guyana, which is funding the pipeline aspect of the project out of cost oil, has found that there would be substantial savings from combining these two facilities.
The scope of the approximately US$900 million gas-to-shore project also consists of the construction of 225 kilometres of pipeline from the Liza field in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, where Exxon and its partners are currently producing oil.
It features approximately 220 kilometres of a subsea pipeline offshore that will run from Liza Destiny and Liza Unity Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels in the Stabroek Block to the shore. Upon landing on the West Coast Demerara shore, the pipeline would continue for approximately 25 kilometres to the NGL plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara.
The pipeline would be 12 inches wide, and is expected to transport per day some 50 million standard cubic feet (mscfpd) of dry gas to the NGL plant, but it has the capacity to push as much as 120 mscfpd.
The pipeline’s route onshore would follow the same path as the fibre optic cables, and will terminate at Hermitage, part of the WDZ which will house the gas-to-shore project. (G3)