‘Terms
too tight’
Newsday
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
08 26 07
Dr. Pedro Van Meurs, of Van Meurs
Coporation, which provides petroleum consulting
services to
countries the world over, said over the last three
years, increased costs in exploration costs have
severely constrained government’s take on
deep water resources.
He suggested that government needs
to be mindful of the high costs of deep water
exploration, an
unexpected new feature of deep water fiscal systems. “ Trinidad
is not successful in offering deep water acreage
but based on competitive terms around the world,
the deep water terms (here)
may be too tight to attract the
large scale investment for the expensive undertaking.”
“At this time, government should revisit
its regime for deep water and try again at its
bid round,” he said. Van Meurs also said
that new technology over last ten years in heavy
oil and oil sand production have opened up new
opportunities and in Alberta, Canada, for example,
some 40 percent of heavy oil is being recovered.
“Trinidad has heavy large resources of heavy
oil, it could attract the new technology to go
after this resource which is virtually untouched, “ he
said, adding that government should design a special
fiscal regime to make the economic recovery of
the heavy oil, potentially possible.
He noted too, that marginal gas
resources in shallow waters were becoming less
but that the country’s
fiscal system is not geared towards marginal field
and it should be looked at by the government. The
Energy Ministry which manages the downstream businesses
that exceed
US$9 billion is also considering
offering acreage on the north coast and two blocks
on the east coast
by mid-2008 for competitive bidding, Permanent
Secretary in the Ministry of Energy, Leroy Mayers
said. The Ministry plans to conduct 3D surveys
in the north coast marine area and electronic surveys
in the deep Atlantic. “This is to improve
the data that we have, so that when we go out for
our next bid round, hopefully towards the middle
or towards the end of 2008, we can provide the
companies with improved data which will ensure
that they can make better judgement in terms of
the blocks we present to them,” he said.
The Ministry will conduct study
on heavy oil as well as audits on potential acreage.
It also plans
to commission an energy data hub by October which
among others, will enable secure electronic transfer
of the country’s high-value petroleum information
and create online collaboration and knowledge-sharing
between the ministry and upstream producers.
Trinidad & Tobag Newsday
Thursday, August 23 2007
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