Riley: Everyone believes bpTT will find gas

“Everybody has faith in our ability to find gas, almost on demand,” he told business executives attending a breakfast meeting organised by the American Chamber (Amcham) at Movie Towne.

Riley, whose address was titled, “Operating a successful gas business and projections for the future–the bpTT experience,” said bpTT’s business is expected to be one of the order of 500, 000 barrels of oil a day or three billion cubic feet.

Riley also took the view that the Ibis Deep gas platform, the deepest vertical well ever drilled in TT and which is currently being drilled in the South East consortium block in the Columbus basin, will open up a new source of gas for the country and which could “radically alter the existing reserves picture.” He said the new fields will help recover the maximum amount of proven reserves and also recover some of the probable reserves, “thereby maintaining our high rates of gas production to the domestic and LNG markets.”

He noted though that bpTT may be entering a new phase of operations, where modest prospects are drilled but with a high degree of confidence and then tied into its existing infrastructure.

He dismissed fears of over-extending itself, saying that the company can supply existing contracts for the next 20 years.

As evidence, he cited the three Cannonball projects which are capable of delivering as much as 780 million cubic feet a day, if required.

Riley said Ibis, a consortium of companies–EOG Resurces, Petrotrin and NGC (National Gas Company) whose target depth is about 20, 000 ft – being closely watched by Prime Minister Patrick Manning because of the potential it holds for the future of the petoleum industry. “He understands too well the significance of this drilling effort,” Riley told business executives who attended his presentation inside one of the movie theatres.

In bpTT’s case, he said there was proven reserves of 13 trillion cubic feet, which he noted, was approximately two–thirds of the total resource base.

Daily production now stands at 2.3 billion cubic feet per day, which he said, was three times that of 1996. He told business people that their finding costs have been low by international standards :under US$1 per barrel as opposed to the norm of US$2 per barrel. He said the company’s position in data assembly and interpretation gives it a big advantage in how it approaches work in offshore TT. “There are things about the local geology that only bpTT knows,” he said.