Don’t
stop search for Guyana oil
By Linda Hutchinson-Jafar
T&T News Day
POrt Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
01 07 07
A senior petroleum geologist in
Trinidad said although there have been no discoveries
of commercial hydrocarbon in Guyana, the search
for oil cannot be stopped now.
“ The search for oil in Guyana
cannot be stopped now. Reviews of existing data
and recent drilling results support a renewed effort
to find the elusive commercial oil field in Guyana,”
said Fazal Hosein, Chief Executive Officer of International
Geological Services Limited.
“That field may be just one
well away.”
Giving background on Guyana’s
search for oil, Hosein, a former chief geologist
at state-owned Petrotrin Trinmar Operations, said
the south American country has a long history of
exploration for oil and gas, beginning in the 1920s
and continuing in phases up to 2005 but with no
commercial discovery.
Identifying the three main prospective
areas as the Guyana Offshore Province, the Coastal
Onshore Province and the Inland Onshore Province,
Hosein said each of the provinces has their own
characteristics which encourages the continued search
for oil.
“ The main ingredients for
finding hydrocarbons in all three provinces are
the presence of oil source rocks, reservoirs and
traps or seals, all of which are present,”
said Hosein, who has evaluated plays in Guyana and
Venezuela on behalf of clients.
“ In addition, the presence
of oil has been established by well tests and oil
and gas shows which indicate that commercial quantities
of hydrocarbons could be one well away,” he
said.
Prospective areas have been identified
in each of the provinces and substantial quantities
of oil and gas could be found if the mix of requirements
for accumulation is present in the prospects, Hosein
told an international energy conference in Port-of-Spain
earlier this month.
Hosein, who returns as President
of the Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago,
in the new year noted that the interplay of stratigraphy
and structure are important in the Offshore Province
where recent drilling results were encouraging in
the Abary-1 well.
“Deep water turbidite sands
encountered in Offshore Guyana are usually associated
with large oil fields in a similar setting elsewhere,”
he added.
He noted that the Coastal Onshore
Province is closest to the analog oil field of Suriname
where the Tambaredjo and Calcutta oil fields are
being developed to exploit more than one billion
barrels of oil.
Hosein added, “ The structural
and stratigraphic setting in the Guyana Coastal
Onshore Province is very similar to that of the
Suriname oil fields. Stratigraphic traps are important
and necessary for entrapment of oil migrating up-dip
from the offshore source kitchen,
“If the same depositional
environments and facies relationship are present
in the Guyana area, then there are excellent opportunities
for finding hydrocarbons in two prospective blocks
over a large area which could have significant oil
reserves,” he said.
Hosein said testing of 42 degree
API oil in the Inland Onshore Province has been
significant but challenging as oil was found in
unconventional reservoirs of fractured shale and
basalts.
“The excellent cap rocks,
the widespread distribution of the reservoirs and
the quality of the high priced light oil can present
the right conditions for exploitation and confirmation
of commercial oil field in this province,”
he concluded.
T&T
News Day
Thursday, January 4 2007
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