Even as the EPA works on “tightening the language” for permits so that start-up periods are not abused by companies, ExxonMobil is currently producing 98,000 barrels of oil per day at the Liza-1 offshore well and hopes to meet its 120,000 per day target on August 10th 2020, the same day that routine flaring is projected to end, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director Dr Vincent Adams said yesterday.
“They were under maintenance from June 27th to July 7th and as at today are producing 98,000 barrels per day and they hope to reach the 120,000 mark on August 10th,” Adams told Stabroek News in an interview.
“So when they are at that 120 [000] mark it would mean that flaring would be zero. We are in the meantime working to change the vagueness as to what ‘start up’ and ‘emergency’ means in existing and future permits, as it pertains to the flaring so you won’t have months of flaring. We are tightening the language to say what a startup period should be specifically and definitively. That is, is it a period lasting three days, three weeks, one month? We have to make it clear,” he declared.
