Farmouts spurring Trinidad exploration work

A flurry of acquisition and farmout agreements involving a Toronto independent spotlights more exploration under way in Trinidad and Tobago.

Mantaur Petroleum Corp. agreed to pay $1.3 million (U.S.) in cash and company stock to purchase Eastern Petroleum Australia Pty. Ltd. Eastern's assets consist of interests in two concessions on the island of Trinidad, one offshore and one onshore.

Offshore license

The East Brighton license off Trinidad is jointly held by operator Premier Oil 70% and state oil company Petrotrin 30%.

Eastern earlier agreed to farm into Premier's acreage to earn a 50% net interest by paying for the estimated $1.2 million cost of drilling two wells to 3,500 ft. Petrotrin's interest is carried through to the start of commercial development.

Enron Oil & Gas Co., Houston, recently acquired a farmout of Eastern's 70% interest (50% net) in the East Brighton block by paying for the seismic work and agreeing to drill a 4,500 ft wildcat on the block. Enron is presently refurbishing a jack up rig for its Gulf of Paria exploration program off Venezuela and expects to have this rig on the East Brighton location in April 1998.

The East Brighton license covers 82 sq km in the Gulf of Paria off the northwestern coast of Trinidad extending from the shoreline to the 3-mile limit in water depths to 80 ft. The license area is immediately east of Brighton field, which has produced more than 70 million bbl of 30-36? gravity oil from Oligocene to lower Miocene turbidite sands in the Nariva formation that has also proved productive in Tabaquite field onshore and to the east of East Brighton.

The main prospect identified on a 3D survey over the block is a fault block/anticline directly on trend with the Brighton field, with the main Nariva sand expected to be at about 2,000 ft. Additional stacked sands identified in the Nariva give a total net sand development over the high in excess of 400 ft. The water depth is 30-70 ft over the structure, which is 2-4 km from shore and existing Brighton field facilities.

In the development phase, Mantaur will have a 20% participating interest. The partners hope to hit a 100-600 ft thick blanket sand at the base of the Nariva. Top Nariva is predicted at 1,000 ft with objective sands at a depth of 3,500 ft.

The Eastern and Enron agreements are subject to Trinidad and Tobago government approvals.

Onshore block

Mantaur also assumed Eastern's 25% net interest in the onshore 1,900 acre Icacos block on the Cedros Peninsula held by Premier Oil.

The block includes the Icacos field, which has produced more than 500,000 bbl of 26-28? gravity oil from Mio-Pliocene lenticular prodelta sands of the Cruse formation at 2,000-2,500 ft.

In a recent agreement between Eastern and Kroes Energy, Calgary, Eastern agreed to transfer a 25% interest to Kroes after the latter paid certain acquisition costs and half the cost of drilling two wells to 3,500 ft.

Mantaur's exploration program for the block will extend updip from the main producing sands found in the 1C-1 and 1C-2 wells in Icacos field along with an untested trend identified from restudying old field wells.

The company will also explore for Cruse sands approaching the crest of the Southern anticline that crosses the southern portion of the block. British Petroleum Co. plc encountered in Pedernales field substantial reserves in an identical structural setting on trend 25 miles to the west in eastern Venezuela.