In an­oth­er ma­jor blow to T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor, EOG Re­sources’ first ex­plo­ration well in its Trinidad North­ern Area (TNA) is a dry hole.

The Busi­ness Guardian has con­firmed from mul­ti­ple sources in a po­si­tion to know, that the ex­plo­ration well failed to find any hy­dro­car­bons and in­dus­try ex­perts say while ex­plo­ration fail­ures hap­pen all the time, this well was cru­cial in prov­ing up a the­o­ry that could have po­ten­tial­ly added tens of mil­lions of bar­rels in re­cov­er­able re­serves to T&T.

The Busi­ness Guardian was told that EOG’s ex­plo­ration well had a tar­get depth of 13,400 feet but it was aban­doned at 12,992 feet af­ter fail­ing to find any oil or nat­ur­al gas.

EOG was try­ing to prove a the­o­ry that be­low the oil bear­ing Pliocene rocks, found in the for­mer Trin­mar, they could go deep­er and find oil in what is called the Miocene or Her­rera rocks.

The Busi­ness Guardian was told that the well was drilled on a ma­jor ge­o­log­i­cal fea­ture, the south­ern an­ti­cline, which stretch­es from Venezuela in an east/west di­rec­tion, through the Gulf of Paria and fur­ther in­to on­shore Trinidad.

This an­ti­cline pro­duces oil in the Bonasse field in the South West Penin­su­la, on­shore Trinidad, in an area op­er­at­ed by TED.

The EOG well was called CT-1 and was lo­cat­ed on the an­ti­cline and would have pen­e­trat­ed the Pliocene sand­stone reser­voirs which pro­duce hy­dro­car­bons in the Sol­da­do fields in the Gulf of Paria.

The well, how­ev­er, went much deep­er than these Pliocene reser­voirs in search of deep­er oil.

These deep­er reser­voirs are prin­ci­pal­ly the lid Miocene/Her­rera sand­stones which was the tar­get for the re­cent dis­cov­er­ies by Touch­stone on­shore Trinidad. EOG was test­ing to see if it could make sim­i­lar dis­cov­er­ies in the Gulf.

Sources wor­ry that be­cause the well did not find deep­er reser­voirs this could put a damper on fur­ther ex­plo­ration for deep reser­voirs in the Gulf of Paria.

Guardian Me­dia send the fol­low­ing ques­tions to EOG Re­sources:

1. ↓Can you con­firm that the well was a dry hole?

2. ↓Did it reach tar­get­ed depth or was it stopped at 12,992 feet?

3. What play was the well go­ing af­ter?

4. ↓What is EOG’s next move af­ter this fail­ure?

In a re­sponse the com­pa­ny con­firmed it was a dry hole.

It said, “The ex­plo­ration well we re­cent­ly drilled off­shore the south­west of Trinidad was de­ter­mined to be un­suc­cess­ful. The well was ex­plor­ing old­er reser­voirs be­low ex­ist­ing pro­duc­ing sec­tions and reached tar­get­ed depth. We are in­te­grat­ing the well re­sults with the seis­mic da­ta and will con­tin­ue to in­ter­pret the da­ta.”

It was on March 24, 2021 that there was a sign­ing of an agree­ment be­tween State-owned Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd and EOG Re­sources Trinidad Ltd for the farm-in and joint op­er­a­tor­ship by EOG in Her­itage’s Trinidad North­ern Ar­eas (TNA) Sol­da­do fields.

Un­der the agree­ment EOG was ex­pect­ed to ex­plore and de­vel­op any dis­cov­er­ies made on the block. The spe­cif­ic area is about 15% of the TNA Li­cence Area, and the sur­round­ing ar­eas that have an ex­ten­sive his­to­ry with the three ma­jor Sol­da­do fields, the Main, East and North Sol­da­do Fields, dis­cov­ered be­tween 1954 and 1965 and were some of the ear­li­est ma­jor dis­cov­er­ies in the Gulf of Paria.

On­ly re­cent­ly En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said he was keep­ing his fin­gers crossed that the ex­plo­ration well would be suc­cess­ful as he talked about the need to in­crease crude pro­duc­tion.

Speak­ing to the Ge­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of T&T (GSTT) Young said: “As re­gards its off­shore acreage, Her­itage signed a far­mout agree­ment and joint op­er­at­ing agree­ment with EOG Re­sources Ltd for ex­plo­ration and de­vel­op­ment of its East Field in its Trinidad North­ern Area.

“The farm-in area com­pris­es of 14,870 hectares over the wider Trinidad North­ern Area E&P Li­cence area com­pris­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 97,000 hectares. EOG has 65% in­ter­est in the ven­ture and is the op­er­a­tor.

“The first ex­plo­ration well was spud on June 10, 2022 and drilling is pro­ject­ed to be com­plet­ed in 30 days. We are look­ing for­ward to good re­sults and in­creased oil pro­duc­tion from this ven­ture.”

There has been in the past sig­nif­i­cant ex­plo­ration ef­forts look­ing for deep­er oil in Trinidad, the most no­tice­able in the Cre­ta­ceous in Trinidad in the ear­ly 1990s when Exxon em­barked on a ma­jor ex­plo­ration pro­gramme to test the Cre­ta­ceous reser­voirs and were un­suc­cess­ful with three dry holes.

How­ev­er ge­ol­o­gist Dr Kr­ish­na Per­sad said he was ab­solute­ly sure that the oil is there in the deep­er hori­zon in the Her­rera rocks.

He said there is a risk that EOG may have sim­ply drilled in the wrong place.

Dr Per­sad said: “I know, I know, I don’t think, I know that there is oil be­low the Pliocene and in the Her­rera hori­zon. Maybe it is un­for­tu­nate­ly for them that they drilled in the wrong place be­cause in the South West Sol­da­do field there is a well that was drilled that went through 2000 feet of Her­rera pay but it was tight and may have been heavy.”

There is a re­al risk as well that in the deep­er hori­zon in the Gulf of Paria that the oil could be heavy not­ed Dr Per­sad.

He ex­plained: “I looked at where this well was drilled and it seems to be with­in a trend where the mid to low­er Miocene reser­voir should have been present and even if the struc­ture was wet that does not negate the po­ten­tial of the deep­er reser­voir.

“We know the source rock is the Cre­ta­ceous and it is present, and we know that we are in the oil win­dow and that mi­gra­tion has oc­curred from the source rock to the Pliocene and the struc­tures in the deep­er reser­voirs will be charged and there is a risk that the charged rocks may have had seep­age and mi­gra­tion of the light ends and it could be heavy oil due to the loss of light ends .”

Per­sad said he is “110 per cent con­vinced that the Her­rera pay ex­ists be­low the Pliocene in the Gulf of Paria.”

Per­sad ar­gued that all along the South­ern Range An­ti­cline Blocks Her­rera oil­sands are be­ing eject­ed by the mud vol­ca­noes.

“I have analysed the oils and they were orig­i­nal­ly light oils in both the mud vol­cano, by the Bonasse field and the one fur­ther East.

“It is to the West as well. In East­ern Venezuela there is an oil field that pro­duced 50 mil­lion bar­rels of oil from the Her­rera on trend. So there is no is­sue about the if, it’s just un­for­tu­nate­ly for them the struc­ture they drilled was wet.”

Per­sad con­clud­ed, “I am say­ing in the Her­rera trends on­shore and ex­tends west in­to the Trin­mar acreage and fur­ther west in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters and there is still sig­nif­i­cant oil to be found.”