Oil-gas
drilling off Tobago next week
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
11 18 07
Petro-Canada, the multi-billion-dollar Canadian energy giant, will begin exploratory
drilling for natural gas 12 miles off Tobago's North Coast next week.
The semi-submersible rig, the Diamond Ocean Worker,
on a six-month lease to the company, arrived at
the drilling site on Thursday from the Gulf of
Mexico, where it was serviced and prepared for
the job.
Petro-Canada will drill four exploratory wells
in what is known as Block 22 within the six-month
period.
The first well to be drilled will be Cassra-A,
located 14 miles and 17 miles northwest of Castara
and Charlotteville, respectively.
This well will take between 32 and 52 days to
be completed.
The second well to be drilled will be Cassra-B,
located 12 miles and 16 miles off Castara and Charlotteville,
within 35 days.
Sancoche-A, the third well to be drilled, is located
further northwest or 25 miles and 22 miles off
Castara and Charlotteville.
This well will take between 45-60 days to be drilled.
The Ocean Worker will then move further northwest
where Bene-AA will be drilled.
This well is located 33 miles and 39 miles northwest
of Castara and Charlotteville and will take between
50 and 70 days to be drilled.
Top officials of Petro-Canada have been in Tobago
for the past two weeks meeting with stakeholders
at Castara and Charlotteville to discuss the company's
drilling schedule and the precautions being taken
to avoid inconvenience to the island's fisherfolk
and other marine users in Block 22.
A similar meeting was held with NGOs at the Rovanel's
Resort on Thursday.
Petro-Canada's communications specialist Rosemary
Drummond said in an interview at the Hilton Tobago
earlier this week that all the environmental studies,
including the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA),
have been completed and the company should receive
its Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC)
any day now.
She said a safety zone of one-third of a mile
radius around the drilling rig has been established
and for safety reasons mariners were being advised
to observe the zone and give it a wide berth.
She said once the wells have been drilled they
will be capped on the seabed and marked with buoys.
Drummond said drilling rigs were contracted with
their own skilled labour but Petro-Canada was able
to find jobs in catering and rigging for at least
ten Tobagonians.
She said the company was making arrangements to
carry out an oil spill drill in a few days in the
event one should take place and that fair compensation
will be provided to the fisherfolk who may be affects
by the drilling operations.
Petro-Canada signed production-sharing contracts
in partnership with State-owned Petrotrin for Block
22 and two others in 2003.
Seismic programmes were completed last year and
according to Petro-Canada's Senior Coordinator
Geomatrics Martin Redford, Block 22 had the potential
to have hydrocarbons.
He
said the company had every reason to believe
that there were large deposits of hydrocarbons
in this area under the seabed. In a press kit provided
to this newspaper, Petro-Canada stated that, "we
believe that there is natural gas present in this
block".
Tobagonians would have to wait much longer than
the end of the drilling programme to know whether
there were large quantities of natural gas that
can be economically produced from the wells since
the company was bounded by formalities of the New
York and Canadian Stock Exchanges and Government.
Minority
Councillor Hochoy Charles has for years produced
maps and charts to the public to support
his claim that "Tobago is sitting on a bed
of oil and gas" and that much of the country's
oil and gas revenues belonged to Tobago.
Chief
Secretary Orville London has countered that "Tobagonians
are sitting on a sea of opportun-ities".
Story
by Earl Manmohan Scarborough from
Trinidad Express
Trinidad
Express
Saturday, November 17th 2007
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