Page 12 - LatAmOil Week 08 2023

LatAmOil GUYANA LatAmOil

Head of VEHSI touts benefits of Guyana’s

new offshore oil and gas service base

VREED-EN-HOOP Shore Base Inc. (VEHSI), According to Boyer, VEHSI will be able to
a joint venture established by Guyanese and expand its service base in the future if necessary
Belgian investors, has said it expects the service and facilitate the construction of additional
base it is building on an artificial island to reduce shore bases, thereby ensuring “deep maritime
the cost of delivering supplies for offshore explo- accessibility” for offshore operators. This will
ration and development projects by as much as reduce the country’s dependence on foreign
12%. service hubs, he stated.
Nicholas Deygoo Boyer, the director of “Once fully realised, the Port of Vreed-en-
VEHSI, reported at Guyana’s Energy Confer- Hoop will tie into the country’s vision to expand
ence and Expo on February 15 that work on the Guyana’s development,” he remarked. ™
service base was moving forward. The company
is confident of its ability to finish the first phase
of the project before the end of 2023, which will
allow the base to begin docking delivery vessels
in December, he said. VEHSI is then due to
complete the second phase, which will allow the
base to receive two ships carrying basic goods at
the same time, by July 2024, he stated.
The company is setting up the service base
by building an artificial island in the channel of
the Demerara River, Boyer noted. The first stage
of the project will bring the island’s area up to
10 acres (0.04 square km), and the second stage
will expand its area to 20 acres (0.08 square km),
with an additional 4 acres (0.0162 square km) to
be added by December 2024, he said.
VEHSI’s Guyanese shareholder, NRG Hold-
ings, has already taken steps to prepare the
Demerara channel for the anticipated increase
in marine traffic that the service base will bring,
Boyer said. He noted that NRG Holdings had
recently finished dredging the channel in
order to extend its draft to 9 metres, to increase
its width by more than 60%, to lengthen it by
8.05 km in a north-westward direction and to
remove all previous shipwrecks. These steps will
make the local waterways easier for large ships
to cross, he explained. Boyer (standing), shown speaking on February 16 (Photo: Port of Vreed-en-Hoop)

BRAZIL
Karoon Energy to drill second control

well at Neon oilfield offshore Brazil

AUSTRALIA’S Karoon Energy has said it positive preliminary results at its first control
intends to drill a second control well, Neon-2 well, Neon-1 (9-NEO-1-SPS).
(also known as 9-NEO-2D-SPS), at the Neon In a statement, Karoon noted that it had
discovery in the Santos basin after achieving spudded Neon-1 on January 23.

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 08 22•February•2023