Page 7 - LatAmOil Week 06 2021

LatAmOil THE BAHAMAS LatAmOil

BPC reports non-commercial oil find

LONDON-LISTED Bahamas Petroleum Co. and reservoir quality sequences in the Aptian.”
(BPC) said earlier this week that it had dis- According to Simon Potter, BPC’s CEO,
covered crude oil in Perseverance-1, the first these results indicate that Perseverance-1 may
well drilled at the offshore block known as the be worth revisiting at some point in the future,
Southern Licences, but described the find as especially if another investor signs on to the pro-
non-commercial in nature. ject. “The company will proceed to undertake
In a statement, BPC said it had halted drilling a comprehensive evaluation of the data derived
on February 6 after the Stena IceMAX drillship from the well, as we believe the results provide a
sank the well to a depth of 3,900 metres, inter- sound technical basis for renewed farm-in dis-
secting the Albian, Upper Aptian and Mid-Ap- cussions,” he commented.
tian strata. This fell short of the original targeted Potter also said he expected data from Per-
total depth of 4,800 metres, the statement noted, severance-1 “will prove invaluable in providing
but the company decided against continuing in a modern analysis as to the regional potential
light of its findings thus far. of the petroleum system, which, in our view,
“Given that the totality of the reservoir sec- reduces technical risk for any future/further
tions evaluated to 3,900 metres represented the exploration in this new frontier province.” ™
majority (approximately 70%) of the total esti-
mated prospective volumes, the lack of hydro-
carbons in demonstrably commercial volumes
led to the decision to [stop work on] the well at
that point,” it said.
The well is now slated to be plugged and
abandoned, BPC noted. The company had
hoped to find around 770mn barrels of oil in
recoverable reserves.
Despite this disappointment, BPC also
stressed in its statement that oil was present
within the well. “Depth and thickness of res-
ervoir sections encountered were generally as
prognosed pre-drill, and reservoir porosity was
likewise generally in line with pre-drill expec-
tations (in the range of 10% to 20%),” it said.
“Hydrocarbons were encountered at various
horizons, indicated by elevated gas chroma-
tography readings detected continually during
drilling, generally increasing with depth and
through the deeper Aptian reservoir column
in particular. Oil was identified from high oil
saturation values from logs in a number of res-
ervoir sections, thus verifying the existence of
a working Lower Cretaceous petroleum system Perseverance-1 is BPC’s first exploration well (Image: BPC)

COLOMBIA
Colombia gives Ecopetrol exclusive

right to negotiate for stake in ISA

COLOMBIA’S government has pledged to Finance Minister Alberto Carasquilla made
begin negotiations with Ecopetrol, the national that commitment in a letter to Ecopetrol, say-
oil company (NOC), on the sale of a majority ing that the government expected to finalise a
stake in Interconexion Electrica SA (ISA), the contract giving Ecopetrol the exclusive right to
country’s transmission system operator (TSO). negotiate the purchase of a 51.4% interest in ISA.

Week 06 11•February•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P7