Page 11 - LatAmOil Week 24

LatAmOil THE BAHAMAS LatAmOil

“The merger is ideal in terms of asset overlap and “It is rare for a relatively small oil and
will create a combined company that is stronger gas company to have access to a prospective
than the sum of its two parts,” said Leo Koot, the resource of this size,” he said.
executive chairman of Columbus. As long as it gains the necessary shareholder
“The combined group will create a larger, approval, the merger is expected to go ahead in
more diversified oil and gas champion for the early August. ™
Caribbean and South America,” he added.
Columbus is focused on onshore prospects
in Trinidad and Suriname. It has five producing
fields, two appraisal projects and a prospective
exploration portfolio in south-western Trini-
dad, as well as one onshore appraisal project in
Suriname.
Meanwhile, BCP has concentrated on off-
shore exploration in the southern territorial
waters of The Bahamas. Its Bahamian assets may
hold as much as 8-28bn barrels of oil in place
(OIP). The firm has also recently secured an
exploration licence in Uruguay that could hold
1bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
Following the merger, BPC is likely to retain
its existing management team, with Potter as
CEO. Meanwhile, Koot, Columbus’ executive
chairman, will become a non-executive director.
BCP is planning to start drilling the Persever-
ance-1 exploration well offshore The Bahamas
in the final quarter of 2020 or the first quarter of
2021, the firms said. If drilling goes to plan, it will
“transform” Columbus as a company, because
the well has a P50 prospective oil resource of
770mn barrels, with an upside of 1.44bn barrels,
said Koot. The company is gearing up to drill at Perseverance-1 (Image: BPC)

ECUADOR
Ecuador restarts SOTE network

after completing bypass line

STATE-OWNED PetroEcuador said last week average of 340,165 bpd from fields in the Ama-
that it had restarted the Trans-Ecuadorian zon to the port of Esmeraldas, were not affected
Oil Pipeline System (SOTE), which has been by the shutdown. Inventories at the Balao termi-
damaged repeatedly by a series of floods. The nal were full enough to cover deliveries while the
360,0000 barrel per day (bpd) line is once again pipe remained offline, the company said.
operational, following the completion of a sec-
ond bypass section, the company said.
The 498-km pipeline ruptured in early April
and then had to be shut down following heavy
rains, which led to mudslides and erosion that
affected several of the rivers that cross the prov-
inces of Napo and Sucumbios. In response,
PetroEcuador built two new bypasses – one
380-metre section near the Marker River and
another 690-metre section near the Montana
River. These will serve to move the pipeline
around 400 metres away from the eroded sec-
tions of the route, said the company’s CEO Pablo
Flores.
According to PetroEcuador, crude exports
through the SOTE system, which pumps an SOTE and OCP oil pipelines (Image: Ecuador Hydrocarbons Ministry)

Week 24 18•June•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P11