Page 15 - LatAmOil Week 11 2020

LatAmOil
NEWS IN BRIEF
LatAmOil
Moreover, according to most global commen- tators, it now appears likely that this high level of operating uncertainty will continue to pre- vail for at least the next eight to 10 weeks, which unfortunately runs right through the Company’s currently scheduled drilling window, thereby introducing a risk to the Company’s ability to operate continuously, responsibly, and within currently established guidelines, timelines and, as a consequence, budgets.
At the time of the Company’s AGM in Sep- tember 2019, the Company indicated it was on course to commence drilling in H1-2020. The Board and management remain committed to delivering commencement of drilling within this timeframe along with thereafter uninter- rupted drilling operations for 45 to 60 days. On this basis, spudding the well in the second half of May 2020 (and certainly no later than early June 2020), as opposed to previous estimates of April 2020 is now the Company objective. This revised target has the advantage of avoiding any expected peak in the COVID-19 response, whilst at the same time enabling operations to be completed before the peak risk period for hurri- canes in The Bahamas.
However, to the extent the current adverse circumstances in the global operating environ- ment persist, resulting in continued deferral of commencement of operations until after early June 2020, the next practical window to pru- dently commence operations (i.e., post the peak risk period of the Hurricane season) would be from mid-October 2020 onwards. The Company stresses that this is not the Company’s planning objective, but the Company is seeking to develop a prudent “back-up” plan on this basis, so that in any credible scenario the Company can realisti- cally meet its primary licence obligation – i.e., an initial exploration well in 2020.
As shareholders will appreciate, the current circumstances occasioned by the Covid-19
response are unprecedented, highly fluid, unpre- dictable, and of a global nature. The Company is actively monitoring the situation and its poten- tial impact on an ongoing basis, in an effort to assimilate all relevant information and formu- late a prudent, effective response as efficiently as possible. The Company will advise shareholders of any material developments as pertain to the Company and its planned operations, as and when appropriate.
Bahamas Petroleum Co., March 13 2020
SERVICES
PGS improves pre-salt
imaging in Brazil using
innovative reprocessing
The March edition of First Break focuses on modeling and interpretation and features an article from PGS on improving pre-salt imaging by deploying innovative model driven technol- ogy. The authors outline the impact of advanced modeling and inversion technologies on seismic data reprocessing to support exploration and production objectives in a prolific pre-salt play offshore Brazil.
Sriram Arasanipalai, lead author of the arti- cle, reports: “Rigorous benchmarking of the velocity model against geological subsurface information enabled a more accurate model build and more reliable seismic images.”
The underlying seismic data are from the Santos Vision project that combines15 different legacy surveys with variable acquisition param- eters into a seamless broadband seismic volume over more than 50,000 square km in the Santos Basin, Brazil.
The use of modern modeling and inversion
technologies and benchmarking of the earth model against geological constraints has enabled a high-quality seismic image primarily focusing on the prolific pre-salt play. It demonstrates the value legacy seismic data has for alleviating all forms of uncertainty, when reprocessed with new technologies.
The model building workflow was optimised using Full Waveform Inversion (FWI), resulting in a more accurate model and seismic image of the pre-salt data. Least-squares migration (PGS LSM) was used to compensate for variable illu- mination and resolution, particularly with angle.
The final data was accurately imaged with reliable amplitudes in both the pre-stack and post-stack domains, which enables a new level of confidence in data interpretability and reservoir characterisation.
PGS, March 16 2020
FINANCE
Bahamas Petroleum
announces expansion to
existing loan facility
Bahamas Petroleum Co., the oil and gas explo- ration company with significant prospective resources in licences in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, has announced that it has suc- cessfully agreed to an expansion of its existing zero-coupon, second ranking, unsecured con- vertible loan note facility by GBP8mn (approx- imately $9.8mn, before expenses and fees) to GBP16mn.
The Company has entered into an agree- ment to expand its zero-coupon, second rank- ing, unsecured convertible bond facility from GBP8mn to GBP16mn, of which 90% is available for cash draw down, provided by an institutional family-office investor based in the Bahamas
The expansion of the facility will see immedi- ate additional cash inflow of GBP1.8mn (approx- imately $2.2mn), with access to the remaining balance of the facility (being GBP11.4mn in aggregate) available to be drawn at the Com- pany’s election, in four committed instalments through April to July 2020.
The estimated cost of drilling the 100% owned and operated Perseverance-1 well, tar- geting recoverable prospective resources of 700mn-1.4bn barrels of oil, is the range of $25- 30mn (with potential contingencies identified of up to an extra $5mn) - inclusive of the facility expansion, if all funding sources available to the Company (as previously announced) are avail- able, fully drawn, and not been scaled-back or replaced. The Company’s overall funding capac- ity for its strategy is now approximately $45mn.
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