Judy Maksoud
International Editor
Exploration in the Mexican Gulf of Mexico took off last year, and E&P work will continue to be heavily funded through 2004. Brazil has allocated a significant sum to exploration and production work for the coming year. Trinidad and Tobago's offshore continues to reward investors with sizable returns. And Canada's East Coast is on the rebound. In the US GoM, exploration efforts will target ultra-deepwater plays and deep gas in the shallow-water shelf areas.
Alaska
In late March 2004, Alaska made a move to increase oil and gas development, initiating a leasing program in state waters offshore the Arctic along the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. A plan is in place for a lease sale covering over 1 million acres by October.
Governor Frank H. Murkowski noted his intention to include the state offshore ANWR tracts in the October 2004 Beaufort Sea Area Wide lease sale.
Canada
Activity off Canada's Maritime Provinces started off slowly last year but picked up speed at the close of 2003.
EnCana resumed work on Deep Panuke off Nova Scotia, and Canadian Superior joined El Paso to drill a new area of the shelf.
Record-setting bids on Newfoundland and Labrador's Orphan basin blocks in December 2004 ushered in a new era of optimism for the province. Bidding for new acreage in the Orphan basin hit an unprecedented C$672,680,000.
A new seismic survey could open another exploration area off the coast of Labrador. More seismic data will be acquired this summer.
US Gulf of Mexico
Central Gulf of Mexico Sale 190, held in mid March, indicates the industry still has confidence in the US GoM. The agency received 829 bids on 557 tracts covering 23 million acres, the highest number of bids received in a Central Sale in the past six years.
Interest in the deepwater continues, and the large number of ultra-deepwater tracts receiving bids is of particular interest. Most noteworthy is that 60% of the bids were on the shelf, indicating that the deep gas royalty relief, expanded earlier this year, could pay off.
Mexico
Mexico has drawn many rigs from the US GoM for a huge drilling program that began in 2002. In addition, four new discoveries are to be brought onstream in the Veracruz basin, a portion of which lies offshore.
Pemex plans to invest $1.18 billion in natural gas projects in the Gulf. A lot of money is going into expanding the offshore pipeline system. Global Industries Ltd. subsidiary Global Offshore Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V. has been awarded three sizable pipeline contracts in the Bay of Campeche's Cantarell field.
Trinidad & Tobago
BP Trinidad & Tobago (BPTT) will start drilling on its Cannonball gas field off the southeast coast in 2Q 2005. The drilling program includes three wells from a single drilling platform.
In September 2003, Bluewater Energy Services B.V. won a contract to supply a single point mooring system for BHP Billiton's Angostura field, the first major oilfield to be developed offshore Trinidad.
Angostura is 35 km off the Northeast coast of Trinidad. The facilities will include a number of offshore wellhead platforms and a central processing platform connected by intra-field pipelines. An onshore terminal with oil storage adjacent to Guayaguayare Bay.
Venezuela
Ever since the national upset in Venezuela at the end of 2002, Pdvsa has been scrambling to regain stability. Unfortunately, it will take some time for the country's energy sector to return to normal.
Venezuela's offshore will see investment from ChevronTexaco, which was awarded block 3 in the Deltana region off the northeastern coast. The company paid a $5-million bonus for the field after bidding on it last November. Drilling could begin as early as June 2004.
Brazil
Petrobras plans to increase international operations over the next four years and to consolidate its competitive advantage in the domestic oil market. The company has budgeted $34.3 billion to be spent in the 2003-07 period, representing a $6.9-billion average annual investment. Petrobras plans to spend 85% of the $34.3 billion domestically, $22.4 billion of which is tagged for E&P. The company expects to become a net exporter of oil by 2007.
Another of the company's stated goals is to develop the natural gas market so as to assure the demand for Petrobras' natural gas. With the large gas find offshore late last year, Brazil is faced with the question of how to develop its reserves.
The Agência Nacional do Petróleo (ANP) will launch Brazil Round 6 in Rio de Janeiro in August 2004. Blocks in 29 sectors of the country's 12 sedimentary basins will be offered in this round, which encompasses mature onshore basins, main producing basins, and frontier basins.
Brazil hopes to attract $20 billion in investment, following a bidding round last August that engendered little interest.
Argentina
Chile's state-owned Enap and Spain's Repsol-YPF laid plans last year for a joint venture to carry out exploration off Argentina. The plan is to explore the CAM-1 block in the Atlantic Ocean near the eastern mouth of the Magellan Strait, east of Chilean waters. Sipetrol Argentina is to operate the exploration process as it already has exploration concessions in the zone.
In early 2004, Argentine oil company Pan American Energy bought 35% stakes from Repsol YPF in offshore blocks 40 and 46 in the Malvinas basin 450 km east of Tierra del Fuego. These high-risk blocks cover 6,500 sq km and are in depths greater than 500 m.
Repsol YPF still operates both blocks, but the move reduces its stake in block 40 to 65% and in block 46 to 34%.
French Guiana
According to Hardman Resources, technical evaluation and mapping of the new 2D seismic survey off French Guiana has confirmed the presence of large prospects and a thicker sedimentary sequence than previously recognized.
The new 7,500-km 2D seismic survey concluded in mid-February 2003, and the fully processed data set was delivered at the end of June. As of last November, Hardman's technical team was mapping and interpreting the data.
Falkland Islands
Hardman Resources also has 30% interest in a JV that holds a large offshore exploration permit covering 10 license blocks in the South Falklands basin. The southern basin is underexplored and is covered by only a sparse grid of seismic data from 1993.
The JV purchased 4,340 km of this data and in carrying out seismic mapping on behalf of the operator, Global Petroleum Ltd., identified a number of leads and prospective play types.
Ecuador
Though expectations were high for Ecua-dor's four offshore blocks on offer last year, the government took in no bids.
In March 2004, Ecuador extended the deadline for the next bidding round for the Gulf of Guayaquil.
Ecuador received one proposal for the two other Gulf blocks it had put up for bid. The contract holder will have four years to explore for oil and 20 to produce. Gas reserves would amend the production period to 25 years.
Bahamas
Kerr-McGee Corp. affiliates Kerr-McGee Bahamas Ltd. and Atlantic Exploration and Production Co. acquired 100% interest in nine oil and gas licenses offshore the Bahamas. The licenses, in the Blake Plateau basin about 100 mi. north of Freeport, Grand Bahamas Island, cover 6.5 million acres in water depths ranging from 650 ft to more than 7,000 ft.
Greenland
In mid 2003, the Greenland and the Danish governments agreed on a new petroleum licensing policy for Greenland.
A bidding round was formally opened with a letter of invitation. Opening meetings were held in early April in Copenhagen and Houston. Licenses are to be granted early in 2005.
