Americas
Trinidad and Venezuela will hold talks on how to divide offshore natural gas fields that Chevron Corp. seeks to develop.
Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Chevron CEO David J. O’Reilly say cooperation between the two nations is needed before Chevron can extract natural gas from the Manatee and Loran fields in the southern sector of the Caribbean Sea.
Manning did not announce a date for the discussions with the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Previous talks broke off last summer when Venezuela announced its Petrocaribe initiative to supply fuel under preferential terms to nations in the Caribbean, where Trinidad has long been a major supplier.
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Petrobras says it has started producing natural gas at its offshore, shallow water Peroa field in the Espírito Santo basin, and the first of three wells there, 3-ESS-89A, was expected to reach its project capacity of over 1 MMcm/d of gas by the end of last month.
Gas supplies will be doubled once the first 100 km of the Southeast-Northeast Gas Pipeline, linking the cities of Cacimbas and Vitoria, becomes operational in the second half of 2006.
The Peroa platform is located off the northern coast of Espírito Santo state in a water depth of 67 m. The platform can process 8 MMcm/d of gas production.
This work is the first phase of the Peroa project, and represents a nearly $260 million investment by Petrobras.
The second phase, which is still at the project stage, will increase supplies from the current level of 1.3 MMcm/d to 8 MMcm/d by 2008.
In the second half of 2008, Petrobras also expects first large volumes of gas from the Santos basin, where Mexilhao and Merluza fields should pump 12 MMcm/d then.
By 2010, Santos gas output is expected to reach 30 MMcm/d.
Africa
Kosmos Energy has entered into agreements with West Africa Drilling NV and Aban Singapore Pte. Ltd. (Aban) to acquire drilling services from the drillshipPeregrine III.
Aban will upgrade the dynamically positioned drillship in a Singapore shipyard to operate in water depths up to 6,000 ft.
Total project costs are an estimated $180 million to $200 million.
The vessel is scheduled to reenter service in mid-2007 and initially will drill wells for Kosmos offshore West Africa.
Aban will operate the drillship, which will be renamedAban Abraham.
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Norway’s Hydro has been awarded an E&P license for areas 2 and 5 in the Rovuma basin offshore Mozambique.
Water depths in the license area range from shallow to over 2,000 m.
Hydro will operate the concession, which extends over 14,500 sq km, with state oil company Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos taking a 10% interest.
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FirstAfrica Oil Plc has completed the East Orovinyare-4 (EOV-4) appraisal/development well offshore Gabon. Using the jackup rigAdriatic IX, an oil column of 165 ft (128 ft forecast) was encountered.
EOV-4 has been temporarily suspended with theAdriatic IX moving to another contract. Drilling will continue with arrival of the jackup rigAdriatic VI in spring 2006.
Middle East
Toreador Resources Corp. and its partners, Stratic Energy Corp. and Turkey’s state-run TPAO, have scored success with their Dogu Ayazli-1 exploratory well in the Black Sea.
Testing of the well has confirmed the presence of commercial quantities of natural gas in a new location to the east of the Ayazli structure, which was discovered by Toreador and its partners in 2004.
The Dogu-Ayazli-1 will be completed as a gas producer.
The new well and the partnership’s previously successful exploratory and development wells will be dual-completed and brought online in the first phase of production from the South Akcakoca sub-basin in the second half of this year.
Construction of the transportation infrastructure necessary to deliver the gas to the Turkish national grid is continuing on schedule.
As operator of the well, Toreador has a 36.75% working interest, TPAO holds a 51% working interest, and Stratic has a 12.25% working interest.
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Petrobras has won exploration rights for two offshore blocks in the Turkish sector of the Black Sea, jointly with TPAO.
The two companies will have equal stakes in the Kirklarelli and Sinop deepwater blocks with good geological prospects, according to Petrobras.
Petrobras says its rivals in the TPAO-organized licensing auction were BP, Exxon- Mobil, and Total
Asia-Pacific
The Indonesian government is expected to invite bids this month for 27 oil and gas blocks, 17 of which would be negotiated on a direct offer scheme and the rest through regular tenders, says the Energy Ministry’s Director General of oil and gas, Iin Arifin Takhyan.
Five of the direct-offer concessions had failed to attract bids previously, he says, adding that most of the blocks were onshore.
All agreed deals would be under a production sharing contract.
With crude oil production dropping to 1.061 MMb/d in 2005 from 1.094 MMb/d in 2004, Indonesia has been promoting exploration both onshore and offshore, especially with new terms and conditions under the directly negotiated scheme as a means of enticing investment in exploration in untested regions.
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Korean National Oil Corp. has discovered an economically viable natural gas deposit in the East Sea.
The Donghae 6-1 sector deposit is estimated to hold 10 bcf of high-quality LNG.
The drilling site is 75 km southeast of Ulsan and was found about 1,700 m below the seabed.
It is the third such deposit found on the South Korean continental shelf since 1998.
The state-run oil company says the new find was much smaller than the 230 bcf of gas in the Donghae 1 field to the southeast -- that field is now in production -- but was close enough to the larger field for them to be developed together.
The Donghae 1 field produces 50 MMcf/d of gas and 1,200 b/d of crude oil.
Detailed analysis of the field will start this month.
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CNOOC Ltd.’s parent company, China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), has signed a production sharing contract with Devon Energy Corp. for block 11/34 in the South Yellow Sea.
Block 11/34 covers a total area of approximately 10,840 sq km in the northern part of South Yellow Sea basin.
Water depth on the block ranges from 20 to 60 m.
The company has acquired 2D seismic data and drilled wells in block 11/34, one of the blocks CNOOC offered publicly in 2005.
Under the terms of the contract, Devon is committed to conduct 2D seismic survey and wildcat drilling during the exploration period.
CNOOC Ltd. has the right to participate in up to 51% of interests in the event of any commercial discovery in the block.
This contract is the eleventh between CNOOC and Devon.•