By an OGJ correspondent
LIMA, July 11 -- Peru's Hydrocarbons Bureau estimates that investments in oil and gas exploration and development this year will total $391 million, of which $280 million is earmarked for development and $48 million for exploration.
Meanwhile, Peru's oil trade deficit reached $61 million in the first quarter, when average demand was 138,000 b/d, the Hydrocarbons Bureau said.
Oil production averaged 96,257 b/d at the end of May.
Oil demand increased to 141,000 b/d during May and June. The market, however, also consumes 5,000 b/d of products imported illegally from Bolivia and Ecuador, mainly as gasoline, diesel oil, and LPG.
Peru's official oil imports are shipped from Ecuador and Venezuela.
Development investment
The main development investment is in the Camisea natural gas fields, where Parker Drilling Co., Houston, was expected this month to finish the first workover of wells drilled in 1997 by a partnership between Shell Prospecting & Development (Peru) BV and Mobil Exploration & Producing Peru Inc. in the San Martin field (OGJ, Nov. 18, 1996, p. 16).
Shell discovered the world-class fields in the mid-1980s. Camisea is 500 km east of Lima, across the Andes, in the Ucayali basin. The area includes Cashiriari, San Martin, and Miyapa fields. As of 1996, estimated reserves were 11 tcf of natural gas and 600 million bbl of condensate.
A unit of Argentina's Pluspetrol SA, the operator of the Camisea fields' development consortium, imported goods worth $29.6 million through May 31. Transportadora de Gas del Peru (TGP), through Buenos Aires-based steel pipeline and construction contractor Techint SA, imported $32.8 million worth of goods during the same period.
TGP plans to build and operate the gas and liquids pipeline to run from Camisea to the coast. Imported goods include drilling equipment, line pipe, and machinery.
LNG-GTL project study
Meantime, Hunt Oil Co., Dallas, is preparing for an environmental impact assessment EIA as part of an LNG or gas-to-liquids export project feasibility study to be delivered to Peru's Energy and Mines Ministry by March 2003.
The goal is to construct an LNG or GTL plant linked to the Camisea project. Hunt is considering the selection of LNG or GTL technology for exporting natural gas or gas-derived liquid products when the project comes on stream by August 2004 (OGJ Online, Feb. 6, 2002).
The Inter-American Development Bank—together with the Andean Development Corp and international banks—plans to finance $500 million of the Camisea project. Apart from banking and technical requirements, credit approval will be based strongly on environmental considerations.
The most environmentally sensitive areas of the project—the Las Malvinas gas fields region and the first third of the pipeline extending across the Andes through the jungle—have already had their EIAs approved.
Exploration investment
The Hydrocarbons Bureau said the $48 million exploration investment included the recently spudded Marshansha well. Repsol Exploration Peru, a unit of Repsol-YPF SA, this month reported it has drilled the well to 4,500 ft on the Ucayali basin's Block 35.
Meanwhile, Pluspetrol Peru Corp. SA, which last year produced an average 35,400 b/d on Block 1-AB, drilled a wildcat in a new area of Carmen Este field.
Andlocal firm Petro-Tech Peruana SA drilled an exploration well on Block Z2B.
