Exploration in Chile poised to advance

• Evergreen's Chilean Blocks [34313 bytes]

The government of Chile awarded the Denver-based company contracts covering two 5,000-sq km blocks in the Tamarugal basin.

Evergreen-principally a coalbed methane player in New Mexico and Colorado, with a small but growing base of international holdings onshore in the U.K. and in the Falkland Islands-has a 75% working interest in the Chilean blocks and will serve as operator. State-owned Empresa Nacional del Petroleo (ENAP) owns the remaining interest.

Evergreen said the Tamarugal basin, a probable geologic analogue to the Neuquen basin of Argentina, is thought to be a thermally mature Jurassic back-arc basin consisting of thick sequences of source rock along with potential reservoir beds in the forms of sandstone and limestone (OGJ, Dec. 30, 1996, p. 89).

Program details

Evergreen and ENAP may relinquish as much as 100% of the blocks at the end of each exploration period. If production results, the contract period will total 35 years.

Evergreen and ENAP will share the 9 work periods proportionately. The first 1-year period will involve geological mapping and acquisition of aeromagnetic and gravity surveys.

Plans call for 200 km of seismic to be acquired during the second period, totaling 2 years.

Drilling could occur about 2000-2001, based on the current work schedule.