Cost for treating produced water to be revealed by Govt. audit – Jagdeo

Jul 28, 2024 News

Kaieteur News – Guyana’s chief policy maker on oil and gas, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday said that the cost for treating produced water to be revealed by a government audit. The Vice President was at the time addressing reporters at his weekly press conference held at Freedom House, Robb Street, Georgetown.

Jagdeo was asked, “What is the government’s preferred method for Exxon to deal with produced water and can you say how much is being spent to treat it currently?”

In response, he said the government has “an audit process to see whether the expenditure on activities that are done within the company that they meet international standards. So that is my answer for you. When you can tell me how much they pay for snacks well maybe I’d find out…every week I’d have to find out now how much Routledge use to pay for the taxi to come from the airport down to Georgetown.”

Jagdeo failed to disclose how much ExxonMobil Guyana is paying to treat produced water from the three oil projects that are in operation.

“They may be inflating the snacks we might be buying a tennis roll there for I don’t know what a six pack of tennis roll what it cost now, might be $600 instead of $350. They may be inflating the cost for the tennis roll. These have to be audited, they have to be audited. That’s the purpose of a post audit,” Jagdeo told reporters.

He added, “You think every day I am checking how much Exxon pays for treated water, next week you will ask me how much they are paying for snacks. I deal with policy issues so that would…like last week the capping stack you asked me. Oh Jagdeo doesn’t know how much Exxon pays for capping stack. It’s a subscription you could easily find out what the rate of the subscription they pay at. So it’s ridiculous statements to give you headlines.”

Produced water is a liquid that is extracted during oil production activities. It contains dissolved mineral salts, or may be mixed with organic compounds such as acids, waxes, and mineral oils. It may also be mixed with inorganic metals and byproducts or with trace amounts of heavy metals and naturally-occurring radioactive materials, the US Department of Energy said in a research paper. It is also usually very high in temperature, and can be deadly to marine organisms. Due to its toxicity, this substance is best re-injected into the wells, though this may be a costly exercise.

Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Kemraj Parsram recently revealed that the operator of the oil rich Stabroek Block has been feeding the regulator with information relative to the oil concentration in the treated produced water being discharged daily.

According to him, “That is within our key surface waters and offshore as well. The plan is to put these sensors that measure the water quality or measure pollutants in water, in the surface water, in our rivers and we can actually at our offices or on our mobile phones we can actually see real time, what is the quality of those parameters – for example turbidity, temperature, ph, total dissolved solids- these are key parameters that indicate the health of our waters.”

Parsram continued, “Remember they (Exxon) have to treat that produced water before they discharge and they have to bring the oil in the water content in alignment with the World Bank IFC Standards, which is 49 mg per day or an average 29 milligrams per liter per month.”  The Executive Director of the EPA went on to explain that the sensors on the FPSOs then feed the information to the EPA. “So we have a live platform at the EPA where we actually can see, minute by minute, the concentration of oil in produced water,” he noted.

Former Head of the EPA, Dr. Vincent Adams had previously raised concerns regarding the concentration of oil in produced water being dumped by ExxonMobil. He pointed out that while the multi-national corporation should be made to re-inject the produced water into the wells, the government has reversed the environmental regulations to allow the company to instead dump this waste overboard.

• Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Freedom House, Robb Street, treating, Vice President