CGX Energy Inc today announced that drilling for oil had started offshore Guyana on a licence in which it has 25% ownership.
A Marketwire press release said that drilling had commenced of the Jaguar-1 well on the Georgetown Petroleum Prospecting Licence. Repsol Exploracion has 15%, YPF Guyana Limited 30% and Tullow Oil 30%.
Drilling will take approximately 180 days and will go to a depth of 6,500 metres to test the Turonian geologic zone. The release said that the well is being drilled by the Atwood Beacon jack-up rig operated by Atwood Oceanics, Inc.
CGX President Stephen Hermeston said in the press release “The spud of the Jaguar-1 well officially commences the long awaited resumption of offshore exploration drilling for the Government and People of Guyana, the Georgetown Joint Venture Partners and CGX shareholders. The Jaguar-1 well will be the deepest well drilled to date in the Guyana Suriname Basin. The well is targeting the Turonian geologic zone, a prolific producing zone offshore West Africa and Brazil”.
CGX is also set for drilling in its 100% owned licence. It announced last month that the Ocean Saratoga semi-submersible drilling rig departed the Gulf of Mexico on January 1st to drill the Company’s Eagle-1 well.
CGX noted in a release that the Eagle-1 well will be drilled on the Company’s 100% owned and operated Corentyne Petroleum Prospecting License, offshore Guyana. CGX says it will make a further announcement when the Eagle-1 well has commenced drilling.
Interest in the Guyana/Suriname basin amplified after explorer Tullow struck oil last year off of French Guiana raising the prospect of the opening of a major offshore oil producing province in South America and boosting its shares.
Tullow’s Zaedyus well in French Guiana, drilled in more than 2,000 metres of water and at a cost of some US$200 million, was tapping rock formations laid before Africa and South America separated millions of years ago, Reuters had reported.
The company, and partners Royal Dutch Shell Plc <RDSa.L>, with 45 percent and France’s Total with 25 percent, believed the oil-rich west African geology would be replicated in South America.
“Our Atlantic twin basin concept has proven to be valid,” Tullow’s exploration director Angus McCoss said on an investor call.
Tullow’s geological theory is not without precedent. In the past decade, fields with tens of billions of barrels of oil have been found offshore Brazil in reservoirs that were formed when the two continents were attached, Reuters said.
CGX has been attempting to drill offshore the Corentyne since June, 2000 when its contracted rig was chased out of the area by Surinamese gunboats. Protracted negotiations between Guyana and Suriname failed to yield agreement and there was no progress until Guyana took its case to the Law of the Sea Tribunal in Hamburg, Germany and won.
