NORTEX SCHEDULES EXPLORATION ON NORTHERN BELIZE FRONTIER TRACT

Nortex Corp., Houston, has acquired an exploration license covering more than 300,000 acres in northern Belize. The company is reviewing data to plan a seismic survey next year. The onshore license calls for a 12.5% royalty. Nortex said its block lies in a region that recently has seen a renewal of exploration, with Phillips Petroleum Co. taking a farmout on a tract just to the west in partnership with the Lucky Goldstar-Seahawk group. The combine has drilled a wildcat on which results have

Aug. 12, 1991

3 min read

Nortex Corp., Houston, has acquired an exploration license covering more than 300,000 acres in northern Belize.

The company is reviewing data to plan a seismic survey next year.

The onshore license calls for a 12.5% royalty.

Nortex said its block lies in a region that recently has seen a renewal of exploration, with Phillips Petroleum Co. taking a farmout on a tract just to the west in partnership with the Lucky Goldstar-Seahawk group. The combine has drilled a wildcat on which results have not been released and is planning a 3-D seismic survey, Nortex said.

Vaalco Energy Inc., Houston, has completed another seismic program west of Phillips' license, along with Pentagon Petroleum and the Morrice-Exeter-Rankin group, Nortex said. A two well program reportedly is scheduled within the next 12 months.

GEOLOGIC SETTING

Nortex said the northern Belize (Corozal) basin in which its tract lies represents the southeast continuation of the Peten basin and the Yucatan platform. Its Lower Cretaceous carbonate-evaporite sequence is a direct equivalent to the section of Reforma-Chiapas in Mexico and the Guatemalan Peten oil horizons. What's more, the company said, the presence of several oil seeps, live oil shows in the Cretaceous section of most wells, and subcommecial testing of 3040 gravity oil in wells in the Belmopan area prove that oil has been generated in the northern Belize basin.

The Nortex license lies on a postulated carbonate-evaporite platform margin with more than 7,000 ft of sedimentary section that has porosity as great as 20-25% in some thick dolomitic intervals capped by anhydride, particularly in the western part of the block.

Nortex said many live oil shows as well as some gas shows have been recorded in several wells drilled in the vicinity of its license area, and part of the Nortex block lies updip from those wells.

Organic rich marine shales of Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous age, similar to those in Guatemala and Mexico, have been found basinward in Northwest Belize, where they appear to have reached maturity. Nortex considers those shales, interbedded in the evaporate section, the most likely source for oil in Belize.

Traps would be structural and stratigraphic.

Nortex blames the region's lack of discoveries on earlier poor seismic coverage and poor data quality due to near surface velocity variations and bad density contrast in the sedimentary section. But, it said, recent seismic surveys in other parts of the basin with similar problems have yielded much better seismic definition of the structural setting.