Guyana eyes becoming major regional natural gas supplier

Last Updated on Monday, 19 February 2024, 14:22 by Denis Chabrol

Guyana plans to export its excess natural gas to Brazil and several Caribbean countries and eventually fuel a bauxite smelter and gold refinery,  President Irfaan Ali announced on Monday.

“Based on pure interest by investors, we are already seeing the second phase of gas coming in will already have to support a second power plant,” he told the government-backed Guyana Energy Conference.

Dr Ali said that with Guyana’s consumption of propane and butane is about 800 barrels per day, there would be 3,200 barrels of those natural gases available for export which would drive transport and logistics.

He said the bridge link across the Corentyne River is “key and critical”  so that that the Suriname market “becomes available ” from the first phase and the construction of the Linden-Lethem road would also open a gas market in northern Brazil.

At full capacity, the President said Guyana is expected to produce 10,000 barrels of propane and butane, positioning Guyana to satisfy all the needs of the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Roraima in northern Brazil. Guyana also wants to sell natural gas to the Dominican Republic which has a demand of 5,400 barrels per day for residential and commercial consumption. “It is important from a policy perspective that the mechanism to allow this trade with DR to be seamless,” he said.

Responding to critics of his administration’s road and bridge building programme, he said “when people ask why build roads, why build bridges, this is the economic link that it creates.” “If we don’t have it, we will sit on 9,000 barrels of propane and it can’t hatch so some of these experts sometimes wonder gazing, academically as to why you invest in roads and bridges,” he said.

The Guyanese leader said increased transportation and logistics would open up a range of small and medium-sized businesses.

Domestically, the President said some of the gas that would be available to Guyana would be used to establish a second natural gas-fired electricity generation facility to power an aluminium smelter for bauxite being produced in Guyana and Suriname and a gold refinery.