The 300-megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired electricity plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara is 68.3 percent complete overall, after experts spent more than a year stablising the soil at a cost of US$100 million, LINDSAYCA Guyana Inc Chairman Nelson Drake said Wednesday.

“It took us 14 months to stabilise and over a US$100 million,” he told the International Business Conference (IBC). The Puerto Rico-based CH4 pulled out of the project several months ago over a dispute about the additional amount of money that had to be spent on site preparation. That dispute is the subject of arbitration proceedings before the Washington DC-based International Chamber of Commerce.

Mr Drake said electricity generation would commence during January- March, 2026.

Now that the soil has been stabilised and consolidated, he said the four main foundations, consisting of 44,000 cubic metres of cement, for the turbines are finished

The LINDSAYCA official said the multi-million dollar soil stabilisation exercise included the use of “top of the line” technology. “A lot of people don’t understand this. You can throw as much money as you want on a site but the land is going to react the way the land reacts so you have to wait until it’s completely stable before you can start building this very expensive and very delicate equipment. That is why we’re behind,” he said.

He said that 89 percent of the engineering for the “emblematic” US$759 million project has been completed, 90.46 percent of procurement and 23 percent of the construction has been completed. “A lot of people would look at this and say this is backwards. Usually, the civil works is done and they’re waiting to get equipment,” he said.

Mr Drake added that more than 75 percent of the equipment, including the gas turbines, steam turbines, transformers and cooling towers are in Guyana. He said the natural gas liquids facility was still in Houston, United States, because “we got no room to store it” but by year end “everything” would be on site except those that could not be preserved there or logistics for the “massive” and “beautiful” project.

The LINDSAYCA Guyana Chairman said the land at Wales has a “very rare mix of sand” which would be the subject of a presentation by the world-renowned Fugro, which was hired to stabilise the soil, would be presenting a Guyana case study in Geneva.

Mr Drake said the site was “not fit for construction” and so a lot of preparatory work was needed for the extremely heavy gas processing facility “which could easily become a bomb anytime it’s not done properly”. He said the Siemens turbine “has to be properly aligned.” “There is no tolerance here for that plant to move and, therefore, you had to stabilise and consolidate and dewater that land,” he said.

The Wales gas-to-energy project would use some of the 50 million cubic feet of gas that would be produced by ExxonMobil.

Mr Drake said the natural gas liquids facility would strip the liquids at 99 percent, two percent more than the contracted amount, which would recoup about 3,800 barrels per day of condensate for marketing by the Guyana government “as they see fit”.

He said the clean gas would then be used to fuel the combined cycle power plant, automatically putting US$200 million per year into the Guyana government’s treasury in liquids or in energy savings.

The Guyana government has promised that Guyanese would pay 50 percent less for electricity and cooking gas would become cheaper.