Production at Exxon-Mobil’s Liza-1 project in the Stabroek Block, offshore Guyana, has plummeted from 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) to now between 25,000 and 30,000 bpd as compressor problems continue and the company would not increase flaring above about 15 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director Dr Vincent Adams has said.

“If the Parties agree that the excess Associated Gas of an Oil Field has no commercial value, then such Gas shall be disposed of by the Contractor in the most economic manner consistent with good international petroleum industry practice, provided that there is no impediment to normal production of Crude Oil.

All costs and expenses incurred by the Contractor in the production, use and/or disposal of the Associated Gas of an Oil Field as stipulated in Article 12.1 and those incurred in carrying out any feasibility study on the utilization of the excess Associated Gas shall be charged to the Development Cost of the Oil Field and shall be Recoverable Contract Costs.

Following revelations earlier this month that at the Liza-1 operations some 9 billion cubic feet of natural gas was flared, a number of persons as well as global environmental and human rights organisation, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), pointed to the effects of the greenhouse gas emissions on the environment, as they condemned the act.

This newspaper had last month reported that  glitches during production startup saw flaring of over 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas; a figure subsequently confirmed by the EPA to be over 9 billion cubic feet, as ExxonMobil assured that it would have from that week begin transitioning to using the gas for well injection purposes.