…as Guyana insists on strict environmental compliance

EXECUTIVE Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams said it is unfortunate that Nalco Champion is no longer pursuing its plans to establish a chemical warehouse here.

The international oil and gas company had applied for ‘Environmental Authorisation’ from the EPA for the operation of a chemical warehouse facility at John Fernandes Ltd. Inland Terminal at Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, Georgetown, and for the transportation of chemicals from the Inland Terminal to John Fernandes Water Street Port. The chemicals would have then been transferred to the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel offshore Guyana but Nalco Champion on Friday informed EPA that it would no-longer establish the facility here due to the ‘restrictive’ measures that were imposed.

With residents up in arms against the establishment of the chemical warehouse at Industrial Site, the company had applied for the location of the facility to be changed from Industrial Site to John Fernandes’ Water Street. But when EPA indicated a 12-month permit would be granted in the interim, Nalco Champion rejected the offer. “We bent over backwards, issuing an interim permit for them to operate under three conditions. They came back on Friday and said those conditions were too restrictive, so they can’t operate,” Dr. Adams told reporters on Monday on the sideline of an oil and gas forum at the Guyana Marriott.

Dr. Adams explained that EPA told Nalco Champion that it was prepared to grant an interim permit for a period of 12 months once mitigation measures were in place. The company was also required to collaborate with the Guyana Fire Service to ensure that emergency response mechanisms were in place in the event of a fire. Lastly, an Environmental Impact Assessment was required. “They came back and told us that those were too restrictive. I don’t think they are, they are reasonable and it’s a minimum expectation but they made their decision and I have no control over that…This agency works in the interest of the people of this nation, and they work in the interest of their country,” the EPA Director said.
The EPA had worked with the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) and the Guyana Fire Service among other agencies to facilitate the company.

Attempts to contact the officials from the company here, proved futile but in defending Nalco Champion’s proposal, its Global Business Development Manager Mike Knippers had said that though it was described as a warehouse, the proposed facility is really a modernised shed where chemicals will be transferred from one chemical tank to another for transfer to the FPSO vessels offshore Guyana. At a consultative meeting at Houston Secondary School, he assured the residents, that, if approval was granted, the operations would have little or no impact on the environment or residents within neighbouring communities of the facility.

“There will be no blending; there will be no reactions; no permanent storage tanks; no buried chemicals; and no vapour clouds, no emissions coming out of that facility,” Knippers told the residents.

“Nalco Champion, an Ecolab company, provides safe, sustainable chemistry programmes and services to the upstream and midstream oil and gas industry, refineries and petrochemical operations in more than 170 countries around the world. Through onsite problem solving and the application of innovative technologies, we maximize production, optimize water use and overcome complex challenges in the world’s toughest energy frontiers,” the company had said.

But the explanations given, from all indication, were of no satisfaction to the residents particularly those from Houston Garden, who live in close proximity to the first site proposed at Industrial site.