Wales NGL plant was not left out of environmental assessment – EPA rejects inaccurate reports

See full statement from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): 

The Environmental Protection Agency rejects the materially inaccurate account of the Wales Gas-to-Energy environmental authorisation process attributed to Dr Vincent Adams in Kaieteur News on 11 October 2026.

Dr Adams is reported as saying that no EIA was conducted for the Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) facility and the gas-fired power plant, and that no project summary or decision on an EIA for those facilities was published. The record shows otherwise. The NGL facility was assessed in the Gas-to-Energy EIA. The power plant was screened separately, and the EPA’s decision that it did not require its own EIA was published with reasons in January 2023, a decision Dr Adams himself publicly criticised at the time.

The NGL facility was assessed in the Gas-to-Energy EIA

The NGL plant was not left out of the environmental assessment.

After reviewing the application by Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), the ExxonMobil affiliate, the EPA determined under section 11(2)(b) of the Environmental Protection Act that the Gas-to-Energy project required a full Environmental Impact Assessment. The project was placed on public notice in June 2021, and the public had 28 days to set out the questions they wanted the EIA to answer.

The EPA’s Terms and Scope for that EIA, was prepared and submitted to EEPGL in 2021 following the public notice period, defining the project as the offshore and onshore pipelines, the NGL plant, a temporary materials offloading facility and associated infrastructure. It expressly required the EIA to assess the NGL plant’s construction, commissioning, start-up, operation, maintenance and decommissioning.

The power plant was placed outside the scope of that EIA, except for cumulative impacts, because it would be built and operated by a separate entity. In its cumulative impact assessment, the EIA modelled air emissions from the NGL plant together with the planned power plant and other existing, permitted or planned EEPGL activities.

The power plant was screened separately, and the decision was published with reasons

The application for the 300 MW power plant was screened under section 11(2) of the Act. On 6 January 2023, the EPA published its decision in the Guyana Chronicle: the project would not significantly affect the environment and was therefore exempt from a separate EIA.

The notice gave six numbered reasons. These covered the cumulative impact assessment for the Gas-to-Energy project, predicted air quality against World Health Organization limits, emissions from natural gas firing, lower carbon emissions compared with heavy fuel oil, wastewater treatment before discharge, and the site’s location in a highly modified landscape with embedded controls and mitigation. The notice invited anyone affected to appeal to the Environmental Assessment Board within 30 days.

Dr Adams previously criticised the very decision he now says was not published

On 9 January 2023, three days after the notice, Kaieteur News reported Dr Adams’s objections to that decision. He said, “They gave six reasons,” and went on to dispute specific reasons, including the reason on particulate matter and the Agency’s reliance on the cumulative impact assessment.

Dr Adams was entitled to challenge those reasons. But his detailed criticism of a published decision cannot be reconciled with the claim now attributed to him that no decision was published.

The decision was appealed, heard in public and upheld

Two appeals, dated 3 and 5 February 2023, were lodged with the Environmental Assessment Board within the 30-day period. The Board published notice of a public hearing on 5 March 2023 and heard the appellants, the developer and the EPA on 22 March 2023.

On 10 May 2023, the Board upheld the EPA’s decision. Section 11(2) places the responsibility for determining whether a project requires an EIA with the Agency, a statutory role recognised by the High Court in Radzik et al v the EPA. The Board upheld the decision on condition that permit conditions address the concerns raised, and it set out the safeguards it required.

The Board’s safeguards are in the environmental permit

The EPA’s Environmental Permit for the power plant (Ref. 20220201-GPLPG), held by Guyana Power and Gas Inc. and valid from May 2023 to April 2028, includes the safeguards the Board required, among them:

• an Environmental and Social Management Plan with an Emergency Response Plan;
• a monitoring plan covering effluent, ambient air quality, stack testing, fence-line monitoring and noise;
• a gas leak detection and repair programme;
• a prohibition on routine flaring and venting;
• limits on ambient air quality, stack emissions and effluent discharges;
• hazardous waste and chemical management requirements;
• reporting of any non-compliance or environmental emergency to the Agency within 24 hours; and
• the Agency’s right to inspect construction and operations.

The existence of these requirements must be distinguished from evidence of their implementation, which remains a matter for the Agency’s compliance oversight.

The Act provides for reasoned screening decisions

Section 11(2) of the Environmental Protection Act provides that, where it is unclear whether a project will significantly affect the environment, the EPA must consider the project summary and publish a decision with reasons. The outcome is either that an EIA is required, or that the project will not significantly affect the environment and is exempt. Anyone who may be affected can appeal to the Environmental Assessment Board.

An exemption from an EIA is therefore not, by itself, a breach of environmental law. The relevant question is whether the decision is supported by evidence and meets the statutory requirements. In this case it was published, challenged, heard in public and upheld.

Scientific scrutiny requires examination of the actual studies

The technical record continued after the screening decision. A May 2024 Air Quality Modeling Update prepared by ERM covers both the NGL plant and the power plant, and assesses predicted concentrations against International Finance Corporation guidelines. The United States Export-Import Bank’s public disclosure page also carries the Gas-to-Energy EIA, a water quality modelling update and a transmission line assessment.

Modelling results are predictions subject to their assumptions; they do not remove the need for monitoring, verification and enforcement. Equally, acknowledging industrial hazards does not justify ignoring the assessments carried out to evaluate them.

Any proposed expansion of the project will likewise be considered on its own scope, under the applicable authorisation and screening requirements of the Act.

The Agency welcomes evidence-based scrutiny. It rejects an account that erases published decisions, misstates the scope of environmental studies and contradicts the commentator’s own earlier acknowledgement of the regulatory process.

Source: INews Guyana