BHP, the Australian outfit drilling in T&Ts deep water has announced that its latest well, Carnival-1 failed and was a dry hole.
This means that neither oil nor gas was found in the well and it was plugged and abandoned.
In its operational review the company said it drilled two well in what it called its northern licences, one encountered hydrocarbons while the other was a dry hole.
It read: “In Trinidad and Tobago, we drilled two additional exploration wells in our Northern licences as a part of Phase 4 of our deep-water drilling campaign. The Boom-1 well was spud on 28 August 2019 and encountered hydrocarbons.
“Evaluation and analysis is ongoing. The Carnival-1 well was spud on 30 September 2019 and reached total depth after the end of the September 2019 quarter. The well was a dry hole.”
This is the first dry well the company has drilled in its Northern licences and Boom-1 makes it 5 out of six successful wells.
BHP is the operator of the Blocks with BP as its partner.
BHP said this completed the exploration program on its Trinidad and Tobago Northern licences.
“Evaluation and development planning studies of the discoveries in the North are ongoing.
Energy Minister Franklin Khan has in the past said BHP is seeking to get a sufficient size of reserves in its Northern License to determine if the deep water blocks will be economic to produce.
What the company has already determine it is economic to produce is its Ruby oil field which it sanctioned in August.
In its operational review the company said: During the September 2019 quarter, the BHP Board approved an investment of US$283 million (BHP share) for the development of the Ruby oil and gas project in Trinidad and Tobago.”
It is expected to drill five production wells, tied back into its existing operated processing facilities, with capacity to produce up to 16,000 gross barrels of oil per day and 80 million gross standard cubic feet of natural gas per day.
