Big
gas on land boost
By Louis B Homer
Trinidad Express
Port
Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
07 22 07
Fears about a possible shortage of natural gas
to fuel new and existing industries would be eliminated
with the initiatives by BG Trinidad and Tobago
to find new reserves of gas on land.
"Supplies of natural gas will be increased
during the last quarter of this year," a senior
official of the company told Business Express last
week.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said the increase will come from the production
of wells now being drilled on land, and completion
of a processing plant in the company's central
block at St Mary's Moruga.
When completed, the plant will handle up to 65
million cubic feet of gas a day. The installation
will be connected to the existing cross island
pipeline system from which Atlantic LNG in Point
Fortin gets its supplies.
"The plant is 80 per cent complete and this
puts us ahead of our programme," said the
official.
During construction, some 220 workers are being
employed and more people will be taken on depending
on the success of the development work now taking
place there, it was pointed out.
BG TT was awarded a licence last year to carry
out exploration and appraisal in the Central Block,
which is located at St Mary's.
This
block was previously farmed by Aventura up to
2004 before it was bought by BG T&T.
From
that concession, BG T&T drilled two exploratory
wells, Baraka East-1 and Corosan NE-1.
"Baraka East-1 encountered and tested for
gas accumulation and is now under an intense feasibility
study," the official said.
The other well, Corosan NE-1 proved to be unsuccessful
and was plugged and abandoned.
The
BG T&T official said: "These were
the first two wells drilled on land in the present
search for gas, and we are continuing our efforts
to find more gas supplies on land."
In
addition to the new plant and the drilling of
wells on land, BG T&T, which aimed primarily
at producing more gas, has embarked on a seismic
survey programme to analyse the geophysical structure
in the Barrackpore area.
The
official said: "The plan is to carry
out a 3D seismic survey over the south west half
of Central Block."
Business Express learned that the surveys began
last week and are expected to be completed before
year's end.
BG Group holds a 65 per cent interest and the
operatorship of this 111 square kilometer block.
State owned Petrotrin holds the remaining 35 per
cent under an exploration and production licence.
Most of the developments in the central block
are carried out on the Carapal Ridge.
Civil works are well advanced, tank construction
is complete and most of the equipment has been
installed.
At present supplies of gas and condensate are
supplied to Petrotrin's refinery at Pointe a Pierre
from the Carapal Ridge Field, it was learned.
BG Group has been operating in Trinidad and Tobago
since 1989 as a major gas player.
The group currently supplies gas to the domestic
market and Atlantic LNG, primarily for export to
North America.
Most of the gas produced on land and a significant
amount of the offshore production are supplied
to ALNG.
With Atlantic's Train 4 on stream, the forecast
is about 800 million cubic feet of gas a day, and
with more to come in the not too distant future.
Trinidad
Express
Wednesday, July 18th 2007
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