Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 47 2019
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TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
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“At that point, the decline in the existing fields will have taken its course with all the mitigations that we are doing. In terms of where gas will go in2026and2027,wewillsee,”shecommented.
Slattery, for her part, stated recently that BHP’s plans for using gas from the Northern block to produce LNG were still in the early stages. The company has determined that the licence area’s reserves are large enough to sup- port this option, she said, but it will not make a
BHP’s assets offshore Trinidad and Tobago (Image: BHP)
final investment decision (FID) on the project until 2022.
BP is a minority shareholder in the North- ernblock,whichincludestheBele-1,Bongos-2, Boom-1, Hi-Hat-1 and Tuk-1 wells. It has a 30% stake in the licence area, which may hold as much as 3.5tn cubic feet (99.11bn cubic metres) of gas, including 1.5 tcf (42.48 bcm) in recovera- ble reserves. BHP holds the remaining 70% and serves as operator of the project.
COLOMBIA
Ecopetrol subsidiary to buy Chevron assets
THE US major Chevron has arranged to sell its minority stakes in two mature natural gas fields to Hocol, a subsidiary of Colombia’s national oil company (NOC) Ecopetrol.
Hocol revealed in a statement dated Novem- ber 22 that it had reached agreement with Chev- ron on the sale. It did not divulge the value of the transaction, but it did say that it intended to acquire the US company’s 43% stakes in the Bal- lena and Chuchupa fields. It also said it would assume the position of operator once the trans- action was complete.
The parties must secure approval for the deal from Colombia’s state anti-trust agency, the Bureau of Industry and Commerce (known by its Spanish acronym SIC). Hocol did not say when the agency was likely to make a decision.
Rafael Guzman, the president and CEO of the Ecopetrol subsidiary, said that the acquisi- tion would help his company achieve its goals. “We are committed to continue generating value for the country and the areas in which we operate, as well as contributing to gas supplies for Colombia’s northern coast,” he was quoted as saying in the statement.
The Ballena and Chuchupa gas fields are located in Colombia’s La Guajira Province. Bal- lena is an onshore site that first came on stream 1977, and Chuchupa, which lies offshore in the
Caribbean Sea, began yielding gas in 1979. Both are maturing, having reached their peak some time ago. In 2018 the fields yielded about 82mn cubic feet (2.32mn cubic metres) per day of gas.
Chevron acquired its 43% stake in the fields when it took control of Texaco, which had been working there since the mid-1970s. Ecopet- rol, Hocol’s parent company, has retained the remaining 57%. The partners have been loading gas from Ballena and Chuchupa into a domestic pipeline network that serves about 6mn house- holds, as well as industrial and business con- sumers.
Ballena and Chuchupa are located in La Guajira Province (Image: Canacol)
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 47 28•November•2019
