Private Houston company buys Colombia's troubled Rubiales oil field

July 23, 2002
Prime Natural Resources Inc., Houston, completed the acquisition of the Rubiales license and Rubiales oil field in the Llanos basin from Petrolex Energy Corp., Vancouver, BC, and affiliates.

By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, July 23 -- Prime Natural Resources Inc., Houston, completed the acquisition of the Rubiales license and Rubiales oil field in the Llanos basin from Petrolex Energy Corp., Vancouver, BC, and affiliates.

Consideration was about $2 million cash plus $3 million in liabilities. One of a succession of operators said the field had 211 million bbl of proved reserves of heavy oil. Another opined 350 million bbl recoverable, equaling 13% of original oil in place, or more.

Petrolex said it was selling the field because of a serious and deteriorating situation marked by disrupted operations, reduction of production and revenues, and doubts about personal safety of field and office staff in Colombia. Petrolex said funds were not available to resolve the situation, which placed the license in jeopardy of cancellation.

The former Tuskar Resources PLC, Dublin, discovered Rubiales, 150 miles east-southeast of Bogota, in 1989. Modest volumes of oil were produced and trucked to a refinery because funds could not be arranged to construct a needed pipeline from the field to Porvenir.

Prime, a private oil and gas exploration and production company owned by Elliott Associates, a New York and London investment fund, has production in and off Louisiana and Texas.