The public company Petroecuador has twice determined with technical reports that the initiative to import liquefied gas and use the plant(s) of the Campo Amistad gas field is not sustainable. off the coastso that fuel reaches Termogás Machal.

Two reports, dated March 17, 2022 and May 30, 2023, seen by this newspaper, state that there are at least three factors that make the proposal unfeasible: quality compatibility, gas flow limitation due to pressure and incompatibility with the bidding process to private companies by Amistad.

First report

In the first report of March 2022, the head of exploration and production, Jaime Garzón, responds to the lawyer Jaime Pinos about the request made to them a few days ago by the importing company Sycar to import gas using the Campo Amistad facilities.

This report showed that there is no possibility of mixing imported clean gas with gas produced at the wellhead in the territory of Ecuador. When the two are mixed, all the fuel has to go through the gas cleaning process again, which increases the price of the product.

But also, in the event that it is requested to charge this additional cost to importing companies, there should be a system for calculating these additional costs, which does not exist. The report states that “a study and review of costs in all phases of natural gas production should be conducted; that is:

As another problem, it was stated that the different pressures “would not allow an easy connection with the gas pipeline K 12”. He indicated that if a joint is made in the middle of the 12″ gas pipeline KAH / KAQ – 9100, “a mechanical restriction could be formed for the flow of gas produced in the Amistad field, since there is a different injection pressure of the gas imported, this may lead to a restriction of flow locally of produced natural gas.”

At this point, the report points out that “this year, the 12″ pipeline KAH / KAQ – 9100 would have a useful life of 20 years in operation, so its mechanical integrity would be compromised by performing an operation of this size: a seabed interconnect.”

In the end, Petroecuador’s response was clear in the sense that “it is not possible to fulfill the proposal of the company SYCAR-LNG SA for the import of natural gas at the Amistad Field facilities (interconnection in the 12” KAH pipeline). / KAQ – 9100)″.

Second report

Meanwhile, for May of this year, in the second report, this time it is the general manager of Petroecuador himself, Ramón Correa, who responds to the manager of Celec, Gonzalo Uquillas and ratifies the first report, pointing out the same problems already mentioned in the report. March 2022

And he adds another related this time to the tender for Campo Amistad and indicates that “as is publicly known, the Amistad field is in the process of bidding to attract investment, with the aim of increasing natural gas production, the reason “for what reason, and as infrastructure for the development of the production of this hydrocarbon, the joint operation of the production and import of natural gas is not compatible for this bidding process, because it is contrary to the intention of the development of this field.”

Despite these reports, these days the manager of Celec has informed EL UNIVERSO that they are hiring an expert to show if this initiative is feasible or not. And he even indicated that the manager of Petroecuador himself agrees that there is an “independent” report.

What do companies interested in Campo Amistad say?

According to Jorge Luis Hidalgo, from Green Power, a company interested in participating in the Campo Amistad tender to increase national natural gas production, the idea of ​​leasing the plant comes from the time of Minister René Ortiz, who promoted it together with his adviser at the time, Fernando Santos Alvite (current Minister of Energy ) with the proposal of NewFortress Energy, whose external advisor was former minister Carlos Pérez. At that time, the manager of Celec was Gonzalo Uquillas, and Cenace was Gabriel Arguello. Now these two last officials occupy the same positions.

For Hidalgo, using the plant would not be sustainable because: “as an example, it would be like mixing drinking water with irrigation water and then treating the water again.” He assures that only the technical adjustments proposed by the gas importers and their promoters from the Government would last more than eight months. So when you read the statements of Celec managers that “either gas is imported or there are power outages and they state that Celec hired an international expert to tell them if it is possible to use Petroecuador’s infrastructure, it creates distrust and frivolity in the bidding process”. It is striking that Celec hires an expert, since it does not have the competence to provide the infrastructure of another company, he comments.

Among other difficulties, it is explained that a series of pressures in the wells would put the operation at risk with a third external actor that could jeopardize the poor operation and permanently damage the wells in current production. This is in addition to other challenges, such as safety regulations and pipeline management liability, etc.

He also assures that “our investors were very upset by this and find it unlikely that the offer can be presented with the conditions that Minister Santos himself and the country’s largest gas buyer, Celec, are responsible for creating uncertainty.”

Amistad field tender postponed for a week: Petroecuador announces that the signing of the contract will be on November 15

In addition, he says that his company GreenPower will continue to try to convince interested parties and will do its best to complete this process by submitting an offer: “We are not against the import of gas, but we welcome competition on equal terms. If they want to import, they should do it by building an independent infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, Nelson Jaramillon Pita of Sycar, an importing company but also participating in the concession tender for the Amistad field, explains that the natural gas produced in the Amistad field is dry (with a high methane content and a very low condensate content such as propane, butane) , with 98.85% methane, which is very similar to LNG (imported), whose methane gas content is also typically 98% to 99% with minimal amounts of other elements such as propane, butane, etc.

The difference between the two is that in the extraction of the first, formation water is also obtained, which is primarily extracted on the Campo Amistad platform, leaving gas in the specification that is transported by pipeline to Bajo Alto; while the other does not contain water, since it was removed in the liquefaction process, resulting in methane gas of excellent quality.

For Jaramillo Pita, it is possible to mix Campo Amistad gas with regasified LNG, properly managing variables such as pressure, temperature, flow rate and point of interconnection, that is, the process reduces the remaining water content in the primary separation process on the Campo Amistad platform, as well as the percentage of condensate, which is minimal anyway, 1.15%, which delivers better quality gas to Bajo Alto than the one it currently receives.

It explains that the quality of the gas obtained by mixing Campo Amistad gas with imported LNG must be obtained through a technical study carried out by Petroecuador or a third party. He says this should be done “if there is a serious desire to import natural gas using the Amistad field.”

However, he admits that the quality of imported LNG is at risk, but claims that this improves the quality of gas received today in Bajo Alto and, above all, increases the amount of gas supplied to Termogas Machala. elimination of the use of imported diesel gas in the mentioned factory.

In terms of regulations, he comments, it is important to understand that imported LNG must be quantified at the exit from the FSRU (vessel), thus knowing exactly how much imported gas enters the Campo Amistad system. As for the limitations that this operation can produce in the future extraction of this field, it is about establishing an elementary working condition that the natural gas that will have priority the pipeline transports production gas, not imported gas, and the second can only supplement national production, not the other way around.