Page 10 - LatAmOil Week 31 2022

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“Each discovery made in the Stabroek block is
extremely positive and helps Eco better target its
next drilling campaign,” he said.
To date, he noted, Tullow has identified 22
prospects at Orinduik. There are 11 leads in the
upper Cretaceous horizon, he added. He did not
say which of these were likely to be included in
the new drilling programme.Green acknowl-
edged that the Anglo-Irish company and its
partners had yet to find any light crude at the
block and had only made tertiary discoveries
of heavy crude at the Joe and Jethro sections of
Orinduik in 2019. These outcomes were unex-
pected and not entirely satisfactory, he said, but
exploration work has continued.
Additionally, he noted, a new competent Tullow and its partners have found heavy crude at two sites (Image: Eco Atlantic)
person’s report (CPR) issued for the block in
March of this year raised the best gross prospec- Equity in Orinduik is divided 60% to Tullow,
tive resource estimate for the licence area from the operator; 25% to a joint venture between
5.1bn barrels of oil equivalent to 8.1bn boe. Eco Qatar Energy and France’s TotalEnergies; and
Atlantic’s net share of the revised total is 681mn 15% to Eco Atlantic. The licence area is about
barrels of crude and 544bn cubic feet (15.41bn 170 km from shore and covers an area of around
cubic metres) of natural gas, he said. 1,800 square km. ™

BRAZIL
Indian government says BPCL can invest

$1.6bn more in Brazilian deepwater project

THE government of India has authorised Bharat
Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) to invest another
$1.6bn in BM-SEAL-11, a deepwater Brazilian
oil block.
India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic
Affairs (CCEA) announced the decision on July
27, saying that this would help the state-owned
company strengthen access to its share of oil
production from the block, which is estimated
to contain up to 1bn barrels of oil equivalent
(boe). It also emphasised the benefits for India of
securing Brazilian oil supplies, saying that state-
owned BPCL’s upstream operations in the South
American country would help improve energy The BM-SEAL-11 block is in the Sergipe-Alagoas basin (Image: Petrobras)
security and diversify the crude import slate.
“Indian oil companies have expressed inter- API but also contains associated gas.
est in sourcing more crude oil from Brazil,” Petrobras had previously announced plans
CCEA noted. It did not divulge the details of to sell its majority stake in the block, along with
BPCL’s plans for investment in BM-SEAL-11. three other deepwater sites in the Sergipe-Ala-
The state-owned company is a participant goas basin – BM-SEAL-4, BM-SEAL-4-A and
in the project through its subsidiary Bharat BM-SEAL-10. In May of this year, however, it
PetroResources Ltd (BPRL), which has a 40% brought the competitive bidding process to a
stake in the block. The remaining 60% of equity close without naming any winners.
is owned by Petrobras, Brazil’s national oil com- The NOC had first offered stakes in the
pany (NOC), which also serves as operator. blocks to investors in 2018 and had reached the
BM-SEAL-11 is located in the Sergipe-Ala- binding phase of the sale prior to cancellation. It
goas basin and is not expected to start produc- explained its decision not to sell by saying that it
tion until 2026 or 2027. It holds mostly light was looking to open up a new deepwater frontier
crude oil with a specific gravity of 40 degrees province in Sergipe-Alagoas. ™

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 31 03•August•2022