ECC:
Riley
says bpTT’s Ibis Deep well was commercial
failure, technical success
TG/Shirley
Bahadur
BpTT’s
chairman and chief executive Robert Riley chats
with a guest during a break in
proceedings on the first day of a two-day Caribbean
energy conference at the Hilton Trinidad.
By Ian Gooding
Trinidad Guardian
Port
Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
12 10 06
BpTT
chairman and CEO Robert Riley has classified the
company’s US$80 million, 19,068 feet deep
dry well in the Columbus Basin, off the east coast
of Trinidad, as a classic case of the “commercial
failure but a technical success” petroleum
industry cliché.
The
well was reportedly the deepest vertical hole ever
sunk in the Trinidad and Tobago province.
“So
was Ibis Deep entirely a waste of money and effort?”
he asked. “Definitely not.”
Riley
was one of the speakers at the sixth annual two-day
Energy Caribbean Conference at the Trinidad Hilton
yesterday.
A
year ago, Riley had regaled the conference delegates
with the endless possibilities of the Ibis Deep
well, which the company was 70 per cent certain
of being productive.
“The
petroleum industry worldwide tolerates seven failures
for every ten exploratory wells,” he said,
“...We at BP have grown accustomed to a much
higher success ratio of seven successes out of every
10 holes—a 70 per cent success rate.”
He
said that although bpTT was drilling the hole on
behalf of its partners EOG Resources, Petrotrin
and NGC, it had agreed to pick up the entire cost.
About 70 per cent of it would not be written off.
“Nature
outsmarted us this time around,” said Riley,
whose company possesses possibly the most comprehensive
knowledge of the oil and gas bearing geological
structure of the country, “and what Ibis Deep
found was mud stones rather than sands. Deep imaging
does not always yield the precise information an
explorationist would like... as good as today’s
tools are, they can’t tell you everything.”
Riley
said that one of the most beneficial elements in
the venture was the transfer of technology to nationals
and the development of national capability in the
petroleum industry, particularly in drilling.
“BpTT
staff had access to information and knowledge from
a wide range of experts from other parts of the
BP Group who had experience in drilling high pressure
wells similar to Ibis Deep,” Riley said. “They
came from Azerbaijan, Angola, Egypt, Scotland, the
US and other BP locations.
“We
sent people to Houston to discuss data around coring
and the cutting of cores, if required, in a first-time
T&T high pressure environment... Four of our
best engineers were assigned to this project.”
Riley
said the project did not invalidate the shallow
water or the Columbus shelf deep horizon.
“The
confidence factor is crucial since we will be returning
to the deep in due course (2008) and this time in
our own acreage,” said Riley.
“Ibis
Deep was sunk in a specially carved out area of
the South East Consortium SECC block, but we also
have similar prospects in areas under our own control...
There are also possibilities in parts of the rest
of our acreage.”
Riley
said that bpTT believed strongly that the “new
frontier” of the Columbus shelf (shallow water)
deep horizons may yet prove successful “though
that day has had to be postponed temporarily on
the basis of the Ibis result.”
“I
want to be emphatic about this: our enthusiasms
has not been dampened,” he stated.
“In
fact, we are ready to return to the deep shelf in
the next few years with renewed vigour. And we will
do so with greater knowledge about the conditions
we will encounter and the most effective way of
dealing with them.”
The
Trinidad Guardian
Tuesday 5th December, 2006
Copyright
©2006 The Trinidad Guardian . All Rights Reserved.
