If Guyana can get the approximate US seven cents per KWH projected for electricity from the gas-to-shore project, it should grasp the opportunity as this could be the catalyst for broad economic development but the suppositions must be underpinned by robust studies, financial analyst Floyd Haynes says.
As the debate on the estimated $US500M -US$800M planned project continues, Haynes argues that natural gas at half the cost of Guyana’s current Heavy Fuel Oil rate cannot only reduce environmental pollution significantly but the benefits derived would serve as spin-offs and will also provide a boost for other developmental areas.
“The cost using HFO (Heavy Fuel Oil) is [US] 14 cents, using gas it’s [US] 7 cents. This cost includes Operations and Maintenance as well as Capital costs. When you control for these two costs, meaning you take those two numbers out, you find the current cost would be somewhere around [US] 10.7 cents for Heavy Fuel Oil and [3.4 cents] using natural gas,” Haynes told Stabroek News in an interview.
