Page 12 - LatAmOil Week 07 2021

LatAmOil GUYANA LatAmOil

CGX said that its share of the hydrocarbons that valuation commissioned, the Guyana Basin
may be found within the licence areas amounted offers the joint venture access to a leading off-
to 4.94bn barrels of oil equivalent in mean shore oil opportunity,” he said. “We expect
unrisked resources and 884.11mn boe in mean a robust Guyana work programme with the
risked resources. advancement of our exploration wells, as we
However, Frontera put its own consoli- continue executing on our plan to realise this
dated share of the total at 6.089bn boe mean value for our shareholders.”
unrisked resources and 1.09bn boe mean risked Richard Herbert, Frontera’s CEO, expressed
resources. similar sentiments. “The independent prospec-
It based its calculations on the fact that it tive resource study reaffirms our excitement
owns 73.8% of equity in CGX, saying that this about the world-class prospectivity of the Cor-
gave it a consolidated working interest of 82.6% entyne and Demerara blocks offshore Guyana,”
in Corentyne and Demerara. he said. “With the support of the Guyanese gov-
Gabriel de Alba, the co-chairman of CGX’s ernment in rephasing our exploration plans, we
board of directors, hailed the release of the IPR. are eagerly progressing our work programmes
“As confirmed by the independent resource for Corentyne and Demerara.” ™

ARGENTINA
Vaca Muerta crude oil production

levels reported up in December

PRODUCTION levels appear to be on the rise companies an incentive to produce more when
in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale basin, largely it temporarily suspended export tariffs, accord-
because developers are focusing more intently ing to an executive from an international oil
on unconventional oil production. company (IOC) working in the country.
According to Rystad Energy, an Oslo-based The executive, who was not named, told Reu-
energy research consultancy, oilfields within the ters that this move had created a “huge oppor-
basin yielded some 124,000 barrels per day of tunity” that had helped Argentina export 7.1mn
oil in December. This is a record high, Rystad barrels of crude in 2020, equivalent to about
said, adding that output levels might go as high 19,450 bpd. ™
as 145,000-150,000 bpd by the end of 2021 if
the pace of development operations remained
steady.
The consultancy did not provide a full break-
down of last year’s data. However, it provided a
chart showing that oil production had dropped
to a low around 90,000 bpd in the second quar-
ter before resuming its longer-term upswing.
Artem Abramov, the consultancy’s top
researcher on shale, said that this upward trend
had been especially apparent in the fourth quar-
ter of last year, when drilling activity gained
speed. Yields “rebounded sharply in November
and December, pushing the new oil well count
to an average of about 11 wells per month,” he
commented.
But according to Emilio Apud, Argentina’s
former energy secretary, the pace of drilling
was not the only factor driving output levels
up. Apud told Reuters last week that higher oil
prices and a domestic gas price freeze had led
upstream operators to shift their focus from nat-
ural and unconventional gas to crude oil.
“In the last quarter [of 2020], oil prices began
to rise,” he said. “Producers stopped producing
gas and switched to oil.”
Argentina’s government also gave oil Vaca Muerta oil production hit a record high in December (Photo: La Voz)

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 07 18•February•2021