A consortium of Argentina's Pluspetrol Resources Corp., Hunt Oil Co. of Peru, and South Korea's SK Corp. Sucursal Peruana, has won the tender for development of the world-class Camisea natural gas fields, 500 km east of Lima.
The consortium offered royalties of 37.2% on production of both gas and liquids. The other bidder, Elf Petroleum Peru BV, offered royalties of 35.5%.
Camisea, with estimated reserves of 13 tcf of gas and 620 million bbl of condensate, was discovered by Royal Dutch/Shell in the early 1980s, but the company was unable to reach an agreement with Peruvian government. It resumed work in the fields in 1996 under a new agreement with the present government.
The fields, however, reverted to Perupetro SA (the state company that promotes oil and gas contracts and supervises the contractors) in July 1998, when Shell and partner Mobil Exploration & Producing Peru withdrew from the fields after failing to reach agreement with the government after completing a 2-year appraisal program (OGJ, July 20, 1998, Newsletter).
The government formed a Camisea committee to seek new investors and in May 1999 called an auction for contracts to exploit the field (OGJ, May 24, 1999, Newsletter). It has called a separate tender for the transport and distribution concession, for which bids are to be presented Mar. 6. Companies that have qualified to bid include Enron Corp., Coastal Corp., Techint, and Promigas, among others.
Pluspetrol has been operating in Peru since 1996, when it took over former Petroperu fields in northern jungle Block 8. It is in the process of taking over operation of northern jungle Block 1-AB under an agreement with Occidental Petroleum Corp., the current operator.