A seismic acquisition operation off the Demerara and Berbice coasts is set to begin later this month and will continue for several months.
According to a Ministry of Agriculture notice the operation is scheduled to last for five months. This newspaper was unable to ascertain if the operation had actually started. “This operation will involve the towing by two vessels of a 12-kilometre long cable with sensitive equipment attached”, the release said.
It notified fisherfolk of the operation and requested that they be on the alert and to give way to the vessels conducting the operation, “so as to facilitate the competition of this important exercise”. The gathering of additional seismic information will allow oil explorers to hone their search.
CGX Energy Inc. is one of the companies that have blocks in those areas. President Bharrat Jagdeo had said in June that Canadian explorer CGX had informed that seismic work would begin in September. He had at the same time urged the company to speed up such work.
CGX had announced earlier that month that it had awarded a contract to Fugro-Geo Team for a vessel to undertake four weeks of 3D marine seismic work in the Guyana Basin off the Corentyne coast. The contract value is estimated to be US$13M and it is to be executed on a 500 square kilometre parcel.
Petroleum companies Repsol YPF and Exxon are also in the hunt for offshore finds and were also expected to undertake seismic work.
President and CEO of CGX Energy Inc Kerry Sully had told Stabroek News earlier this year that high oil prices was making the search for a seismic vessel difficult, but the company was working with some contractors with the hope of commencing seismic work.
Sully said the previous announcement that the drilling could possibly start before the end of 2008 was a premature one and was based on the timelines that were being worked with prior to the Guyana-Suriname arbitration award in September 2007.
He expressed satisfaction at the level of facilitation of the government and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) in the process and said that everything is going as planned.
In June 2000, a rig leased by CGX from an American drilling contractor and operating under licence from the Government of Guyana was forced off its Eagle location by Surinamese navy gunboats. Guyana subsequently moved to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea and an award was handed down in its favour last year.
After the announcement of the award, Sully had said that the decision was “extremely positive for CGX”, as it concluded that 93 per cent of CGX’s Corentyne Licence and 100 per cent of its Georgetown Licence fell in Guyana’s waters.
In December, the CGX President had indicated that if the company in a joint venture effort had been able to procure a seismic rig earlier than expected, then the drilling could have commenced before 2009. The company has also announced that it has retained Jefferies, Randall & Dewey, a division of Jefferies & Company Incorporated, as its advisor to market the joint venture opportunity on its Corentyne Petroleum Prospecting Licence (PPL) located offshore Guyana.
Sully had expressed encouragement at the level of interest that has been expressed in the joint venture process.
