Gas monetisation, other projects on pause until after elections

Vice President and General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, says there will be no further movement on the gas-to-energy monetisation project until after the September 1 General and Regional Elections.

Speaking on the status of the proposal during his weekly press conference, which was held at Freedom House today, Dr Jagdeo explained that the arrangement with Turkish power company Karpowership will also be put on hold until after such time.

“Right now, we are not going to conclude any arrangement with Karpower [ship] before the elections. We are not going to have any movement on the gas monetisation project before the elections, and also the signing of the prospecting licences for the oil and gas sector before the elections,” he said.

The reason he gave is that Guyana is too close to the election period to conduct these processes.

“A good proposal came in from Karpower [ship] which is, that pending the completion of the gas-to-energy project, which is slated for mid next year- as PM [Prime Minister] said in Parliament we can utilise the gas to generate power, using a proposal that they have. 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 – [we were examining] whether we can transmit and utilise all 300 megawatts at this stage, given the state of the transmission lines,” he said.

This assessment is currently ongoing, the Vice President continued. However, he noted that regardless of the outcome, the government is not going to conclude any deal with Karpowership before the stipulated time.

“Because since those two barges came in Karpower [ship] and have been supplying the grid, 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, at least until past the elections. We have adequate power way past the elections,” Dr Jagdeo further explained.

Regarding the 50 per cent reduction in electricity rates, Dr Jagdeo assured that this measure will still apply.

“You could still see that but frankly speaking I don’t think it should be an election issue because if we do it today, they will say, ‘oh we’re only doing it for the elections,’” he said.

Dr Jagdeo nevertheless gave the assurance that the project will be completed by next year.

“Before then, or by the completion point, the price of electricity in Guyana would be cut by 50 per cent and that’s a promise we made. It could happen before, but the outside date is the completion of the gas to energy project which is slated for June next year,” he concluded.