En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young met with Se­nior Ex­ec­u­tives of both BHP and EOG Re­sources dur­ing his trip to Hous­ton, USA and it has been re­vealed that EOG’s Sol­da­do well in its joint ven­ture with state-owned Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um has been de­layed to next year and that BHP is con­sid­er­ing de­vel­op­ing its small­er dis­cov­er­ies in the deep wa­ter in Le Clerc and Vic­to­ria.

Young met with BHP Ex­ec­u­tives to dis­cuss the on­go­ing merg­er/ ac­qui­si­tion with Wood­side as well as oth­er on­go­ing projects in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean.

Michael Stone, Coun­try Man­ag­er to BHP Trinidad and To­ba­go, Gra­ham Salmond, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er BHP Pe­tro­le­um North Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, Sel­by Bush, Head of Cor­po­rate Af­fairs, BHP Pe­tro­le­um and Ro­han Goudge, Head of Ap­praisal BHP were present at the meet­ing which took place dur­ing the the World Pe­tro­le­um Con­fer­ence in Hous­ton Texas on De­cem­ber 7.

The BHP ex­ec­u­tives are said to have pro­vid­ed a high lev­el up­date on the Wood­side deal and ad­vised that it was pro­gress­ing as planned.

BHP’s deep-wa­ter Ca­lyp­so project was al­so dis­cussed, with BHP pro­vid­ing up­dates on the on­go­ing ap­praisal pro­grams of the Bon­gos 3 and Bon­gos 4 Wells.

A re­lease from the Min­istry of En­er­gy re­vealed that BHP gave de­tails on their joint ven­ture arrange­ment with Shell and their ef­forts to ad­dress and min­imise costs, as they work to­wards com­mer­cial­is­ing Le Clerc and Vic­to­ria.

BHP up­dat­ed the Min­is­ter on cur­rent gas pro­duc­tion, which over the past month had in­creased from 360 to 400 mm­scf/d, sup­port­ed by pro­duc­tion from the Ru­by field as well as fa­cil­i­ty op­ti­miza­tion work. BHP al­so in­di­cat­ed that, as part of its con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to find­ing more hy­dro­car­bons, it had com­plet­ed its seis­mic pro­gram in their Bar­ba­dos Blocks and were now study­ing the re­sults.

Young al­so met with of­fi­cials from EOG re­sources. Ex­ec­u­tives of the Amer­i­can out­fit shared their three-year work plan for Os­prey, Men­to, and Sol­da­do fields, and pos­si­ble oth­er joint ven­ture arrange­ments.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter was re­mind­ed that the well in the Sol­da­do field will be the first to be drilled by EOG on the west coast.  The EOG team al­so gave an up­date on its drilling pro­gramme for Sol­da­do, which has been pushed back from the fourth quar­ter 2021 and is sched­uled to now be­gin in Feb­ru­ary 2022.

Min­is­ter Young al­so got de­tails on the Men­to Project in­clud­ing the prepa­ra­tion of de­tailed en­gi­neer­ing works and bid pack­ages.

With re­spect to the Os­prey pro­gramme, EOG in­di­cat­ed it is sched­uled to com­mence in Au­gust 2022.  The com­pa­ny said it is now in the process of con­tract­ing the No­ble Regi­na Rig for this project, which will bring on ad­di­tion­al gas for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Se­nior EOG ex­ec­u­tives are due to vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go on March 22nd 2022, where fur­ther up­dates on Os­prey, Men­to and Sol­da­do will be pro­vid­ed.