Ramnarine: 11 bids for oil and gas exploration
The country’s first onshore bid round in 15 years has netted 11 bids for the three blocks up for oil and gas exploration.
“This acreage was lying idle for a decade, with no plan to generate exploration activity. We decided to make something out of it and create and stimulate interest,” Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine said yesterday at the closing ceremony for the bid round at the Hyatt Regency (Trinidad), Port of Spain.
The results can only lead to more exploration and production activity on land, he said.
The three blocks are located in the southeastern part of Trinidad, or as Ramnarine put it, “in the middle of oil country”—St Mary’s, Rio Claro and Ortoire.
The Rio Claro block received four bids, while the St Mary’s and Ortoire received four each.
The companies bidding were A and V Oil and Gas Ltd, Lease Operators Ltd, Glint Energy LLC, Touchstone Exploration Inc, Range Resources Trinidad Ltd and Trinity Exploration.
Ramnarine said in total 17 data packages were sold for US$40,000 each, bringing in close to $4.4 million in revenue for the country.
He also gave some production statistics for 2013.
The country’s oil production for the ten months ending October 2013 averaged 81,500 barrels of oil per day (bopd).
In 2012, the country’s average was 81,700 bopd. He said his estimation was that the country would end the year with a production level of 82,000 bopd.
Petrotrin’s Trinmar fields had also increased production, he said, with an output average of 23,000 bopd for October; the average for the first six months of the year was 21,400 bopd.
These stats were noteworthy because even though the increase would be marginal, it meant an arrest in the decline of output that had begun in 2006, Ramnarine said.
“This will be the first year that oil production has not declined; it gives us hope for 2014. Our biggest challenge (to increase production) is not complex geology or technology, but resides in the minds of humans who have to be inclined to turn the curve upwards.” …READ MORE