A group of local investors attached to GuyEnergy is pursuing the establishment of a modular refinery in Region 10. But a report seen by this news agency notes that the government is being strongly advised against making this refinery the destination for the majority of Government’s oil share from the Stabroek Block.
The document notes that the modular refinery could be instrumental to increase competitiveness of Guyanese economy, by ensuring the supply of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other products at competitive prices. It was further stated that GuyEnergy’s project consists of a capacity of just 30,000 barrels per day, would occupy only 20 acres, take only one year to come on stream, and would only cost USD$100 million to build.
The report states that the site was already selected, and it is strategically co-located at the Alumina Facility in Linden, which was closed in 1982 because the high cost of energy made the plant unprofitable. The government was advised that the new complex could deliver competitively priced energy to restart aluminium production.
Despite it being potentially useful, the report informed the government that the modular refinery cannot be the destination for the majority of the nation’s oil share. It was highlighted that oil production would initially reach 200,000 barrels of oil per day while rising more than two times that amount. It therefore means that the government’s share will be beyond the modular refinery’s capacity to handle.
A possible solution proffered was for the government to establish a tolling arrangement with a neighbour country, which is an agreement to have a “rationally and commercially-run” refinery pay a fee per barrel processed in return for petroleum products, which would, in turn, be sold to the international markets.
