Vice President and General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo today stated that the government will not finalise any agreement with Turkish company, Karpowership in relation to generating electricity through the use of the natural gas produced from the Stabroek Block.
Back in May, Jagdeo had confirmed that Karpowership had made a proposal to the government to use the natural gas to generate power. He had noted that the proposal could save Guyana about US$1 million per day by replacing the use of expensive heavy fuel oil (HFO) with natural gas-based generation. However, he had said that no decision had been made on the proposal.
When asked for an update today at his press conference held at Freedom House, Jagdeo stated, “So right now, we are not going to conclude any arrangement with Karpower before the elections…We’re too close to the elections to do that.”
He noted that the government received a good proposal from Karpower, which is that pending the completion of the Gas-to-Energy (GTE) project, which is slated to be completed by mid-2026, the company will use the natural gas that is already available to generate electricity.
He said the proposal entails an entirely new ship that is dedicated to processing the gas to generate some liquids and to use the gas to generate about 300 megawatts of power. It was noted that this ship will be located closer to the pipeline that ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) has built to transport the gas onshore to the GTE project site. Also, the vice president stated that if the government moves in this direction Karpowership will have to decommission the two powerships currently supplying Guyana with electricity through two agreements.
Jagdeo stated, “When we got the proposal, we were examining the technical feasibility, because if you generate 300 megawatts of power offshore on a barge, using the gas that’s already in the pipeline, basically because it’s completed, whether we can transmit or utilize all 300MW at this stage, given this the transmission lines, that assessment is ongoing.”
Regardless of the outcome of the examination, he noted that the government will not sign any deal before elections.
Moreover, the Vice President explained that since Karpowership has been supplying Guyana with electricity through powerships stationed in Berbice and Demerara, the government has been upgrading and maintaining Guyana Power and Light (GPL’s) system.
“We’ve been able to now do a lot of maintenance on the old sets and so we have adequate power for the near term until, at least until past the elections, we have adequate power way past the elections,” he added.
