CGX Energy and its subsidiary ON Energy Inc have completed a geo-chemical survey of their onshore concession stretching from Mara, East Bank Berbice to Skeldon on the Corentyne coast.
CGX's president Kerry Sully says, "If the sample analysis currently being conducted at GMT Technologies' laboratories in Oklahoma, USA over the next few months, confirms anomalous areas, we hope to proceed shortly thereafter with seismic or drilling on the property."
A release from the company's headquarters in Canada says that it has "completed the acquisition of geo-chemical samples in the Berbice area" and that "over a five-week period, 8,000 samples were collected by crews composed almost entirely of Guyanese nationals". It said that more than 50 people were directly and indirectly employed in the operation.
CGX's onshore concession is adjacent to that it has offshore and from which on June 3, 2000, Surinamese gunboats evicted its oil-rig from its drilling position in Guyana's territorial waters.
The Oklahoma-based US company, Geo-Microbial Technologies (GMT) carried out the geo-chemical sampling using specialised methodologies it has developed for evaluating the presence of microbes in the soil that feed on trace hydrocarbons escaping along micro-seeps from sub-surface deposits.
When it announced the commencement of the survey, CGX said, "If micro-seepages of hydrocarbons are identified, additional financing will be secured to acquire seismic to define structure and stratigraphic traps over the anomalies. CGX plans to tap local and regional financing for the exploration exercise.
"Seismic acquisition will be very focused in areas of significant geo-chemical anomalies, reducing the cost normally associated with exploratory seismic surveys covering a broad area."
Earlier this month CGX announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding to acquire the Century (Guyana) concession off the Essequibo coast.