In a proactive move to bolster environmental safeguards, Guyana welcomes crucial oil spill response equipment.
Bowing to pressure from activists and local authorities, American oil giant ExxonMobil has landed specialized equipment in Guyana to help control pollution in the event of an offshore oil spill, as the company prepares to launch its fifth oil field in the coming months, officials said Tuesday.
Company officials displayed a huge oil well capping stack that would temporarily cap a blown out well until engineers can properly seal it from leaking millions of barrels of crude oil into the ocean, saying the stack can arrive on location in less than three days in the event of a spill.
Environmental activists, government and the local Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had been pushing the supergiant to have the equipment in the country, fearing that the time it would take to ship one by air or sea would be detrimental to its tourism-dependent Caribbean neighbors and ruin the environment. The EPA had also placed a clause in the agreement for the Yellowtail oil field for a capping stack to be in local inventory, Exxon’s fourth. Investment in Yellowtail is pegged at $13 billion.
