GERGETOWN, Guyana - The president of ExxonMobil Guyana, President Alistair Routledge, says a second gas-to-energy (GTE) project is being pursued in Berbice and the pipeline to bring the natural gas onshore could cost an estimated two billion US dollars.
Gas to energy project (file Photo)“As you know, it costs roughly a billion dollars to lay a pipeline and put the risers in in order to supply gas from the Liza field to Wales in Region Three. To do similar for Berbice in larger volumes, a larger pipeline could easily be two billion dollars or more. (It’s) not a small investment,” Routledge told reporters.
“Don’t take that to the bank. That’s an order of magnitude. I’m just saying the pipeline that we would intend to build would be larger than the 12-inch for the Liza Field connection to Wales. And then you see inflation over years because that was installed in ‘24. I just want to set your expectation; it won’t be a one billion US dollar pipeline. It’s going to be more than that.”
He said while they are yet to work out the specifications of the new pipelines, there are talks ongoing with the Suriname government on sharing the pipeline, adding “it could be economies of scale to do that”.
Routledge said that there are vast gas reserves offshore, with the company regarding the Haimara development as the anchor for the second gas project. But he acknowledged that to bring the gas onshore, ExxonMobil wants concrete projects to fuel.
“We can see real interest in building a domestic gas market, which, in the early stages, will require us to have some anchor projects. These are projects large enough to give us the demand, from an offshore gas supply point of view, to make it worthwhile investing in significant infrastructure,” Routledge said.
He said that there is significant interest from foreign companies seeking to invest in the mega projects needed at Berbice to make the GTE venture viable. Data centres, power generation facilities, and bauxite-to-alumina plants are among the proposals received by the Government of Guyana and ExxonMobil.
The Guyana government has been hinting at the development of a second gas project in Region Six to support large-scale industrial growth with power plants; a data centre; and an alumina plant, among other heavy industries.
