Statoil
ASA bids for deepwater blocks
Por
Juhel Browne
Trinidad Express
Port
Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
04 29 07
Norway-based Statoil ASA was the only energy company that expressed an interest
in drilling for oil or natural gas in any of the eight deep water blocks put
out for tender in the last exploration and production round.
The three main exploration players operating in
Trinidad and Tobago-bpTT, BHP Billiton and BGTT
-did not submit any bids for the deepwater blocks
or the eight onshore/nearshore or three shallow
marine blocks that were out for tender.
Energy Minister Dr Lenny Saith said that this
does not mean there is not enough oil or gas reserves
worth the risk of exploring.
"It is not that people don't feel there is
anything there. It's just an evaluation of the
risk at this time compared to where else they can
put their capital investment," he said.
He did so yesterday in response to a question
posed during the post-Cabinet news conference at
Whitehall, Port of Spain.
Saith had announced that Statoil was the only
company that tendered for one of the eight deep
Atlantic blocks at the close of the competitive
bid round for the blocks on December 15th, 2006.
Statoil has been invited to hold discussions with
the Ministry with a view to arriving at an acceptable
proposal for block TDAA in the Deep Atlantic.
Government had invited tenders for the exploration
and production of the eight deepwater blocks six
months earlier in June, 2006.
Saith said 11 companies tendered 14 bid proposals
for eight of the 11 onshore/nearshore and shallow
marine blocks either singly or as a consortia but
the proposals received for four of them were unacceptable.
Juhel
Browne jbrowne@trinidadexpress.com
Trinidad
Express
Friday, April 27th 2007
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