US partnership wins $760 million contract for power plant in Guyana

After Chinese state-owned enterprises won a series of major state contracts in Guyana, an American company struck a $760 million deal to build two plants to use natural gas from offshore oil fields to produce electricity

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — After Chinese state-owned enterprises won a series of major state contracts in Guyana, an American company struck a $760 million deal to build two plants to use natural gas from offshore oil fields to produce electricity.

Houston-based Lindsayca and Puerto Rico’s CH-4 are teaming up to build a 300-megawatt power plant on Guyana’s west coast and a plant to supply it with gas currently flared primarily by an ExxonMobil-led consortium developing commercial quantities of oil and gas discovered in 2015.

Once the plants are completed over the next two years, much of the gas from at least three oilfields to be developed would be brought onshore to be converted into electricity.

This should help people in Guyana who have experienced decades of power outages and it will reduce costs by reducing the need for expensive fuel imports to power current power plants, President Irfaan Ali said at a ceremony. contract signing on Tuesday evening.

At the ceremony, US Ambassador Sarah Ann Lynch said she hoped the agreement would encourage other US companies to bid on major public and private contracts in Guyana.

Chinese state-owned enterprises have won hundreds of millions of dollars from multiple projects in the former British colony, including a $200 million project to upgrade the local airport, lengthen the runway from 7,400 feet to nearly 11,000 and installing more than half a dozen boarding bridges.

Earlier this year, China Railway Construction won a $260 million bid to build a four-lane bridge over Georgetown Harbor connecting the east and west shores. It also won a $184 million contract to widen and upgrade the main east coast highway linking Guyana’s capital to neighboring Suriname.

Of the six companies applying for the construction of a border bridge between Guyana and Suriname, five are Chinese and one Dutch.