Guyana’s first Gas-to-Energy project, which will be established at Wales on the West Bank of Demerara (WBD), should start supplying power to Guyanese consumers in the first half of next year.
This is according to Consultant with the Ministry of Natural Resources, Winston Brassington who spoke at the Guyana Energy Conference and Supply Chain Expo on Tuesday.
Brassington, who provided an update on the project touted as the single most transformational project for Guyana, said the project development is both on schedule and on budget.
“Given the overall complexity of it and the level of interfaces (every part depends on the other), our delivery period of the first half of 2025 is reasonable and we believe we will achieve this and we will be on time for the combined cycle for next year,” Brassington told the energy conference participants gathered at the Marriott Hotel in Kingston, Georgetown.
He disaggregated the delivery time for each of the components.
The pipeline that will bring the natural gas produced offshore onshore to Wales is on time; this pipeline is being constructed by ExxonMobil. That has a cost of about US$1 billion.
Then there is the combined cycle power plant and the Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) facility which will cost US$759 million. The power plant (simple cycle), which is what will generate the power for supply, is slightly delayed but should be completed by the first half of 2025. The power plant, on combined cycle, is on schedule; that is, for completion by the last quarter of 2025.
The NGL plant will also be completed by the first half of 2025.
Finally, there are the transmission lines and substations which are, essentially, the components needed to distribute the power to consumers along the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS). This distribution network has a cost of about US$160 million and should be finished by the third quarter of this year but no later than the last quarter of the year.
And overall, Brassington said the project should cost “just under US$2 billion.”
He also delved into the ‘dollars and cents’ of the project, noting that this project is still expected to halve the cost of energy.
Much of Guyana’s electricity needs are satisfied through supply from the DBIS), run by the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc.
GPL produces power at a cost of about 17 cents per kilowatt hour and consumers pay about 30 US cents per kilowatt hour for electricity, a figure higher than the Caribbean’s average cost. According to the World Bank, the average rate in the Caribbean is around 25 US cents per kilowatt hour.
“That reduction alone will generate the 50% reduction (in the cost of electricity),” Brassington said.
Power should be generated at a cost of about five to seven cents per kilowatt hour and then sold to the end-user at a price of about 12 cents per kilowatt hour.
