As part of its tightened oversight of offshore operations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has enhanced the permit, which now requires ExxonMobil Guyana Limited to submit daily production reports and detailed updates on every well drilled.
EPA’s Executive Director Kemraj Parsram, speaking during an interview on the Starting Point Podcast, explained that this new measure reflects the agency’s improvements to permits issued for the Stabroek Block operations.
“That’s an example of how we’ve improved our permits over the years. Now we’re leveraging technology, and technology exists, and as we said, we have that partnership with Maxar where we can look at spill detection and look at the extent of the spill when it happens, we get an alert,” Parsram explained.
Back in 2023, the Government of Guyana (GoG) officially launched its partnership with MAXAR Technologies – a leading space technology and intelligence company – to provide remote real-time satellite services to EPA, to boost the agency’s capabilities to monitor and keep its ‘eyes’ on all activities, including petroleum offshore operations, mining, forestry and other activities. The partnership is by way of a three-year contract, valued at US $547,000.
Parsram outlined that he believes well drilling is one of the most critical and risky phases of offshore operations. “So, we wanted to see when a well is being drilled, what’s the condition on the sea floor before, whilst they’re drilling, and what’s the condition after,” he said.
According to the director, the current permit requires remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to provide static images. However, he disclosed that the EPA intends to go further.
“ROV will be there taking static pictures. We put that in because that is what is available right now. But the intention is to actually have live video as much as possible, so that would may be a future, once it’s available and we’re capable of getting it, then that will be inserted in the permit so that we can see live when they’re drilling, when, if anything happens, we can see whether it’s negligence, whether it’s pure, you know, mistake or unavoidable, all of those things we’d able to see.”