By Curtis Williams
OGJ Corresponednt
PORT OF SPAIN, Oct. 24 -- BHP Billiton Ltd. has made another gas discovery in its Angostura field off Trinidad's east coast. Trinidad and Tobago's Energy Minister Eric Williams made the announcement in an address to the Caribbean island's Parliament during debate on the 2003-04 budget.
He said BHP Billiton and its partners made the gas discovery on Block 2c off the east coast of Trinidad in a well called the Howler No. 1.
"They have made a gas discovery in the Cretaceous Naparima Hill formation, which has eluded us, in terms of its commerciality, for quite a number of years." Williams said.
"Although it is on the continental shelf . . . it is in the Cretaceous formations," he said. "Aged formations, in particular the Naparima Hill formations, have long been considered to be the source rock for most, if not all, the oil and gas that exist in our very rich petroleum province.
"The significance of a commercial discovery in the Cretaceous formation blows the game wide open. So for those who say that we are running out of oil and gas, I say, 'Think again!'" Williams told Parliament.
BHP Billiton confirmed the find. "While the discovery was made on Block 2c it was to the south of the Angostura field in an area not explored before now by BHP," public affairs officer Patrick Cassidy said. BHP and partners said: "It opened new possibilities." The well was drilled in water 190 ft deep to a depth of 10,200 ft.
Reserves climbing
Williams said Trinidad's proved, possible, and probable reserves had now climbed to 35.2 tcf. He said proved reserves of natural gas are 20.8 tcf; probable reserves are 8.3 tcf; and possible reserves, 6.1 tcf.
The Caribbean island, which has 1.3 million people, also has a healthy oil reserves position, Williams added.
"Proved oil reserves now stand at 990 million bbl . . . our probable reserves are 324 million bbl of oil, and the possible reserves—based on the audits and estimates of the companies that [are] in Trinidad and Tobago—are now [on] the order of 2 billion bbl of oil." Altogether the total is 3.314 billion bbl of oil, Williams said, and oil and gas together is "in the order of 9.18 billion boe here in Trinidad and Tobago."
The energy minister noted that the increase in reserves was due both to the discovery of a large amount of condensate in at least 24 new gas and condensate fields and to the BHP-Angostura billion-barrel field.
Another discovery?
Meanwhile, BHP Billiton is said by well-placed industry sources also to have discovered hydrocarbons on Block 3a off the east coast. Sources say the discovery was made in the first well BHP drilled on the block, which is adjacent to Block 2c on which BHP found the huge Angostura field.
The company aggressively bid for Block 3a and paid a hefty sum on signing the production-sharing contract with the Trinidad and Tobago government in order to secure it. BHP has not made any secret of its belief that the 2c trend continues into Block 3a and that it would find oil on 3a as well.
However, Cassidy said it would be both premature and speculative to say that an oil discovery has been made at Bimurraburra-1."Drilling operations on Bimurraburra-1 are ongoing and expected to continue over the next few days. Proper disclosure would require accumulation of this additional data and analysis of it by the partners in this well," he said.
The Bimurraburra-1 well was named from an Australian Aboriginal phrase meaning "next to the hummingbird," as it is adjacent to the Kairi (hummingbird) well in Angostura field.
