Gov’t has ‘substantial’ systems in place for monitoring oil and gas operations – Dr Jagdeo

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, has once again deflated contentions that the government is not keeping a keen eye on the activities unfolding in Guyana’s oil and gas sector.

While acknowledging the need to further strengthen monitoring systems, Dr Jagdeo emphasised that there are already substantial mechanisms in place, enabling real-time tracking of various aspects of oil and gas operations.

This includes a comprehensive system that enables the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in conjunction with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to monitor how much oil is being extracted by ExxonMobil and its partners from the Stabroek Block.

“Exxon now shares their dashboard where they are monitoring in real-time what’s going on offshore. They already have that up and running onshore. So, we get to see this screen and it updates every ten minutes,” Dr Jagdeo told a press conference at Freedom House on Thursday.

This system allows insight into other elements such as production data and flare management efforts.

“And you have some of the key parameters that we get to see like the tank inventories, the sea water gas, how much gas is produced, the downtime power generation safety health and environment flare management,” the general secretary explained.

Dr Jagdeo also pointed out that representatives from the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) are present on the vessel to ensure proper calibration of meters, among other aspects.

He continued, “We intend to do parallel things in the future, but right now there are key parameters that we measure.”

At a previous press conference, Dr Jagdeo said that the government is looking at ways to enhance the monitoring capacity of the EPA, even though there are robust systems in place.

In addition to the sensors enabling monitoring of flaring and water quality, the EPA uses NASA’s satellites to monitor any incident of flaring as well as MAXAR technology to have a bird’s eye view of any spill.