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Government has no intention to properly monitor oil production – PNCR
Kaieteur News – The People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) believes that the government has no intention to properly monitor oil production by placing independent meters at the pumps.
Economist and Advisor to the PNCR, Elson Low.
In an invited comment, Economist and PNCR Advisor on oil and gas, Elson Low told Kaieteur News that “this is especially dangerous for the country as if the total reserves are not known and meters are tampered with it could mean over time billions of barrels of oil could go missing without Guyanese have any idea of this loss.”
Low explained that his party reiterates the importance of having trained staff on each floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) to closely monitor the entire production process.
“Without trained staff independent meters could be tampered with, and certainly any issues with the existing equipment would not be identified,” he said adding that “If the PPP cannot be truthful about the nation’s oil reserves, which reporting consistently shows they understate, how we can expect them to truthfully report oil production readings from independent oil meters?”
Chief Policymaker in the oil and gas sector and Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo recently told reporters at one of his party’s weekly press conferences that the government is looking to procure independent meters to monitor production although they have access to Exxon’s dashboard that is currently providing detailed production data.
Notwithstanding, Jagdeo did not provide a timeline of when this would be done.
There have been concerns and constant calls by civil society and experts in the oil industry for Guyana to have its independent meters to monitor ExxonMobil’s oil production, as well as the treatment of produced water.
In spite of this, the Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat has said that the purpose of independent meters is to monitor production offshore and the government already has access to Exxon’s dashboard to do such.
At a recent news conference when asked about independent meters, Minister Bharrat said: “We have a dashboard I was explaining, it was shown to you, it wasn’t live but it was shown to you that we can actually monitor production at 10-minute intervals we can monitor the production. Before a tanker is offloaded, before a tanker is filled GRA has to be there, GNBS has to be there.”
Minister Bharrat explained that in the absence of the presence of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), and the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS), no crude can be offloaded from the Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel into any oil tanker.
He said there are a number of safeguards to ensure that “we monitor what is happening offshore.”
Further, the Natural Resources Minister said, “The whole issue about the independent meter is monitoring, you want us to know what is happening offshore, but we are telling you we have about five, six layers to monitor what is happening offshore. We control the meter because GNBS… if they are not there the meter can’t flow, it can’t turn on.”
Meanwhile, the minister is confident that the system cannot be manipulated since it is computerized.
“It cannot be manipulated or changed, so there is a good system of monitoring what is happening offshore. Either by the dashboard or physical presence onboard with GRA, with EPA, with GNBS and we are training some staff now that will be on the FPSO too. They will be full time on the FPSO, some Ministry of Natural Resources staff are being trained currently by SBM that will be offshore too to monitor everything not only production but everything that is happening offshore,” he said.
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- Government, oil, PNC, production, pumps
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