I HAVE been closely following reports in the Kaieteur News on the flaring offshore at the Stabroek Block with growing alarm, particularly one in which the newspaper said flaring placed “Guyana among the top 10 gas flaring countries in the world.”

It was not until I read a report this week from an online news service which explained the different measurements being used and how Guyana compares to the world using the standard benchmark which is used by the World Bank, that I did a double take and decided to read more closely.

It turns out that Kaieteur News was measuring gas flared in cubic feet, while the World Bank uses cubic metres. One cubic metre is equivalent to 35 cubic feet. The country with the lowest cubic-metre measurement of flaring out of 30 assessed by the World Bank, is Ecuador, with 920 million cubic metres.

Guyana, with around 10 billion cubic feet of gas flared to date, means this is really equivalent to just over 283 million cubic metres. How then can Guyana be in the top 10, top 20, top 30 or even top 40 countries for flaring?

Make no mistake, flaring is harmful to the environment and must be curtailed. Also harmful is misinformation which serves to alarm the population. This puts us, as Guyanese, at a great disadvantage when looking to engage in constructive discussions with international players in the oil-and-gas industry, since we come across as ignorant of basic facts.

I am eagerly awaiting a correction from the newspaper.

Yours sincerely,
Donald Singh