Pomeroon gas boreholes ‘disappointing’
Oil exploration companies are not likely to drill here this year though the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) continues to pursue its petroleum exploration activities.
The GGMC has drilled several investigative boreholes this year and plans to do a few more before the year ends. This is part of its programme to identify and gather scientific data about petroleum and where it can be found. The agency has been principally following shallow gas though most times these have been found to be biogenic in nature.
Boreholes have been drilled on the East Bank Esse-quibo, the West Demerara and in the Pomeroon, Petroleum Manager at the GGMC, Newell Dennison told Stabroek News on Friday. He said that these boreholes are usually terminated at a depth in excess of 200 feet. Some have been as deep as over 300 feet. Some amount of gas has been discovered but these are biogenic in nature. Dennison expressed his disappointment particularly as it relates to the boreholes in the Pomeroon, where he said, they had hoped to encounter indications of migrated petroleum whether tar or pitch. “We have not been able to encounter that…” he said adding however, that some samples had showed some thermogenic characteristics.
The Petroleum Manager said that they hope to move to the North-West District hopefully before the year is out and drill a couple of boreholes there. Meantime, at several of the locations drilled, where there was a gas flow, the GGMC has placed gas collector units. Dennison stated that they are monitoring these and hope to see persons and communities benefitting from these projects. As an example, he cited a project at Wakenaam, where a unit has been operating steadily for more than a year now.
As regards offshore activities, Dennison said that the timetables are pretty much on track with CGX and Repsol working on their 3-D seismic database and processing their data. The other companies are also still processing their 2-D seismic. There had been high hopes for CGX’s exploration offshore since 2000. However Suriname’s eviction of an oil rig and other challenges has delayed exploration in the most feasible offshore areas.
Onshore, Groundstar Resources operating in the Takutu basin has been finalizing arrangements with its financiers. The company would have to identify a drill with the capacity and capability to operate at the location identified. Dennison said that he hoped that in the near term, the drill would be identified. While this has been delayed somewhat, the project remains on track, he said. Groundstar was one of two companies that were scheduled to begin drilling this year, but it has since said that it hopes to do so in the first half of next year.
In a press release in May, the company had said that its interest in the Takutu Basin Petroleum Prospecting Licence (PPL) has been significantly reduced after entering into an agreement with Canacol Energy Limited. The release had stated that Groundstar will remain operator of the block through to completion of the first exploratory well which is expected to be drilled in the first half of 2010.
Meantime, Sadhna Petroleum, a Trinidadian exploration and drilling company, which with Groundstar signed agreements with the Government of Guyana in 2006 for the exploration for petroleum products and for the sharing of returns if the findings were in commercially viable quantities will not be drilling this year after it had earlier pledged to do so. The company’s contract has expired. It had been allocated blocks in the Mahaica/ Mahaicony area. Dennison noted that at the moment the GGMC is in discussion with the company in relation to certain proposals that it had put before the regulatory agency. (Gaulbert Sutherland)
