By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Apr. 25 -- The international unit of MKJ Xploration Inc., Metairie, La., signed oil and gas exploration and exploitation concessions with the Nicaraguan government covering two blocks on the Nicaraguan rise in the Caribbean Sea.
The company plans to begin exploration as soon as the government issues permits.
The Tyra Bank and Isabel Bank concessions each cover 988,000 acres. Each has an exploratory term of up to 6 years followed by up to 30 years for production in case of a commercial discovery.
Each work program includes an environmental study, reprocessing existing seismic and geophysical data, acquiring new 2D and 3D seismic data, and drilling an exploratory well.
Previous wells in Nicaraguan and Honduran waters have tested oil and gas at then noncommercial rates, MKJ noted (see map, OGJ, Feb. 7, 2000, p. 69). New seismic data have revealed large untested structures.
