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1. Montage Petroleum Ltd. of Australia has joined Circle Oil ( Panama ) S.A. in a joint venture to explore Circle's license Block A offshore Panama . Montage will take a one-third interest in the project and contribute on a pro-rate basis to all work programs. Circle currently is collecting reinterpreting geological and geophysical information about the block in preparation for exploration later this year. Water depths range from 1,640 ft to 9,843 ft (500 m to 3,000 m), and the company may contract for a short regional seismic survey if it can't buy the information it needs. No wells have been drilled in the area near Panama 's border with Costa Rica .
2. Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PdVSA) will team up with Iran 's Petropars to develop the Cardon II offshore block in the Gulf of Venezuela . The block holds an estimated 3 Tcf of natural gas. The companies could collect and analyze seismic data and drill their first exploratory well this year, according to a Business News Americas report. Even though Venezuela is South America 's biggest natural gas trove at 151 Tcf, development has focused on oil production and gas infrastructure.
3. Brazilian state oil company Brazil has teamed up with Venezuela 's Petroleos de Venezuela SA on a US $3.5 billion Orinoco Belt extra-heavy oil project designed to produce 200,000 b/d of oil from the Carabobo 1 block. "We see early production in 2009 and full commercial production by 2011," said Pedro Leon, general manager of the certification system for Orinoco Belt reserves, according to a Business News Americas report. The HDH process planned for the project will refine the 7.5-degree-gravity oil to 16 degree gravity. This will be the first block in which PdVSA will certify reserves, in this case, 5 billion bbl of oil. The companies plan to drill 14 exploratory wells on the block before the end of the year.
4. Solana Resources Ltd. brought in its Guariquies 2 appraisal well as a 1,600-ft (488-m) deviation from the same drill site as the Guariquies 1 discovery well that tested oil at commercial rates from the Mugrosa Formation at 5,000 ft (1,525 m) in north-central Colombia . The appraisal found the target formation 770 ft (235m) higher than the discovery and a gas pay section 800 ft (244 m) thicker. The lower zone tested for 700 Mcf/d of gas through a 36/64-in. choke, while the upper zone tested at 740 Mcf/d through the same choke with 8 bbl of oil. In other action in the Llanos Basin , two of the company's wells are capable of oil production, and the other still is drilling. The Bonaire 1 , in the Guachiria Norte block, drilled for US $3.5 million, tested at 20 b/d of oil. The company is investigating the reason for the low production rate compared to other similar wells in the area. The Yalea 1 well drilled in the Guachiria block was completed as an oil producer at a cost of $3.4 million. Swabbing recovered 144 bbl of oil in 10 hours. The Gaviotas 1 well reached total depth at 12,802 ft (3,905 m) at a cost of $4.2 million and will be tested.
5. BPZ Energy Inc. will start drilling at its offshore Corvina field in Block Z-1 on the northern border of Peru to provide natural gas for an onshore power project. The project includes a 10-mile pipeline to the 160-megawatt plant. The company is near completion of the refurbishment of the CX-11 production platform on the field and has contracted a drilling rig. It has acquired a deck barge that will transport the rig to the platform and act as a tender during drilling operations. In related action, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with Suez Energy Peru SA to evaluate the sale of gas from Corvina to the onshore power plan that Suez will build near Arneillas , Ecuador . The plant should consume 45 MMcf/d of gas at peak power production.
6. Gold Oil, with Spectrum Petroleum Plc as a joint-venture partner notified Peruvian authorities they will convert their promotion agreement on Peru 's offshore Z34 block to a 30-year exploration and exploitation contract. Gold has a 50% carried interest through initial seismic collection and interpretation. The Talara Basin has produced 1.7 billion bbl of oil and 340 Bcf of gas, so far. The Z34 blocks is equal to 14 North Sea blocks and covers water from 328 ft to 9,843 ft (100 m to 3,000 m) deep. Only 310 miles (500 km) of 2-D seismic has been shot on the block and no wells have yet been drilled. The companies plan to acquire modern seismic and coordinate that with electro-magnetic data.
7. Partners in the giant Camisea field in central Peru have started drilling the first of six wells on adjacent Block 56 in the 3 Tcf Pagoreni field, according to Business News America. The operator is Argentina's Pluspetrol with US-based Hunt Oil, Argentina's Tecpetrol, Algeria's Sonatrach and South Korea's SK Corp. as partners. The group has evaluated 3-D seismic shot over the tract. This field will produce an estimated 600 MMcf/d of gas destined for North American markets after conversion to liquids at a Peruvian liquefied natural gas plant.
8. Brazil's Petrobras, known for its offshore achievements, has declared an onshore field commercial. The company's Pintassilgo field is in the Potiguar Basin in Rio Grande do Norte state. The new field contains an estimated 3.2 million bbl of heavy oil reserves. Initial production should hit 600 b/d of oil but further development will raise that figure.
9. Partners Quieroz Galvao, Petrobras and Norse Energy have completed the Manati #1 appraisal well to find the thickest continuous gross pay zone ever found in a Brazilian natural gas well. The Camamu-Almada Basin well reach 1,073 ft (327 m) of gross pay in the Sergi formation, and about 80% of that is net pay. That's about 459 ft (140 m) more than the discovery well. The well also found 49 ft (15 m) of gross pay in the Rio das Contas formation. The companies plan another six development wells. The companies are sidetracking the second development well after hole stability problems. Following the discovery, El Paso Natural Gas said it was developing a license near the 212 MMcf/d Manati discovery. The partners would like to start production in the third quarter this year.
10. Petrobras, with 25% partner BG Group and 10% partner Partex of Portugal, is conducting production tests on its BM-S-10 in the Santos Basin to determine if it has reserves of 5 Tcf or more, a volume that would be required to declare the block commercial. The block is 150 miles (240 km) offshore in water to 6,562 ft (2,000 m) producing from wells as deep as 24,608 ft (7,500 m). Development could take 5 or 6 years. Partex also has started production tests on its onshore POT-T-558 block in the Potiguar Basin. It hasn't yet declared the block commercial and it's fighting a high paraffin percentage, said Business News Americas.
11. March Resources has picked up exclusive oil and gas exploration and development rights on two blocks in the Tamarugual Basin of northern Chile. The Pica North and Pica South blocks cover 2.5 million acres (10,000 sq km), and the company is negotiating contract details for the 35-year duration of the contracts. The prospects are on a Jurassic age back-arc basin, the company said, with strong similarities to Argentina's Neuquen Basin. The Atacama Desert covers the basin. No drilling has occurred in the basin since a series of six unsuccessful wells were drilled by the Chilean government in the 1960s. Investigation has revealed oil seeps.
12. Uruguay's Ancap national oil company would like to produce the country's first natural gas sometime between 2010 and 2015 from the Punta del Este Basin offshore if the initial indications of hydrocarbons prove commercial. Uruguay currently produces about 435 b/d of oil, according to Business News Americas. The company plans to invest some US $22 million in exploration for the area which could contain up to 2 Tcf of natural gas. The ocean in the basin is approximately 200 m deep. Petrobras also is involved in talks with Ancap to study to study the Pelotas and Punta del Este basins offshore Uruguay, following initial studies by the two oil companies and Repsol YPF. That study would include the Colorado Marina Basin of northern Argentina. The Pelotas Basin bridges the offshore border between Uruguay and Brazil. Offshore structures apparently are similar to those in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia and the Union of South Africa
13. Repsol YPF, Petrobras Energia of Argentina, Argentine state oil company Enarsa and the Petrouruguay subsidiary of Uruguay state oil company Ancap will invest $30 million in exploration in the unexplored E-1 block in Colorado Marina Basin offshore Argentina. If exploration research looks positive, the partners could spend another $30 million each on new wells in the area. They already have signed a contract with WesternGeco for 3-D seismic, including a 3-month evaluation of existing seismic. All-in-all, Repsol YPF plans to invest $500 million in exploration in Argentina between 2005 and 2009, and $200 million of that will go to offshore exploration. Total investment in all operations will reach $7 billion in the 5 years.
14. Oil M&S, a combination of Argentina's Enerac and Energial, and a consortium called Clivendent Petroleo Argentino submitted bids on five oil and gas blocks in the Chubut province of Argentina. The onshore blocks are Confluenca, Pampa Salamanca Norte, Paso Moreno, Rio Senguer and San Bernardo.
15. Antrim Energy discovered oil with its Las Violetas 105 well onshore in Argentina's Tierra del Fuego. The company drilled the well to 6,090 ft (1,856 m) in the Springhill Formation and perforated the well over a 54-ft (16 m) interval. The well showed an initial potential of 750 b/d of oil with negligible water. The company choked the well back to 450 b/d of oil and is trucking the oil to Rio Chico for sale, where it sells for approximately US $57/bbl. The company plans to delineate the discovery with the help of 3-D seismic acquired last year. The 105 well is the 10th of 11 wells planned by the company in its drilling campaign. Five wells have been completed as liquid-rich gas wells and three others have been cased and are awaiting stimulation. One well was plugged and abandoned.
16. Rockhopper Exploration plc found resistive bodies coinciding with mapped structures after analyzing a controlled source electromagnetic survey over its properties offshore north of the Falkland Islands. Those resistive bodies can indicate hydrocarbons. The company contracted the surveys over its J1 prospect and K lead and acquired new 2-D seismic data earlier this year. Both prospects are in less than 656 ft (200 m0 of water in Falklands licenses PL023 and PL024 , an undrilled segment of the North Falkland Basin close to the islands. Independent consultants estimate P50 reserves on the J1 prospect of 328 million bbl of oil. The consultants did not assess the K prospect.
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