CGX Energy Inc., the Canadian company currently focusing on oil exploration in Guyana, has identified several locations for the start of drilling operations onshore.
CGX says it has chosen at least three exploratory wells here “based on technical merit and access considerations.”
The identification of the sites, across the 800,000-acre Berbice Block belonging to ON Energy Inc., an 84.6 per cent subsidiary of CGX, suggests that CGX is on schedule to begin onshore drilling operations in Berbice in the fourth quarter of this year.
CGX Energy Inc. is a Canadian-based oil and gas exploration company managed by a team of experienced oil, gas and finance professionals in Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom. It is financed internationally and has thousands of shareholders worldwide.
The company is very optimistic about finding oil in its Berbice Block after reporting encouraging results from “very good quality seismic data” obtained in the feasibility programme it completed in June.
Earlier findings indicate that the one oilfield known as Tambaredjo, 200 kilometres to the east of Suriname, contains 900 million barrels of heavy oil-in-place, from which about 170 million barrels are recoverable.
A new geometrical analysis by GeoMicrobial Technologies of the U.S. state of Oklahoma has concluded that, based on fluorescence, potential oil in the Berbice Block itself is “likely significantly lighter than in Tambaredjo.” This suggests that the Berbice Block contains much more recoverable oil reserves than the Tambaredjo oilfield.
“We are excited about this opportunity because of the strong analogies to Tambaredjo and Calcutta in Suriname, the positive geo-chem analysis and the recent seismic programme,” CGX President Kerry Sully said yesterday.
But Mr Sully cautioned that as no hydrocarbon reservoirs have been discovered in Guyana, “the risk of finding commercial deposits of petroleum remains high.”
CGX recently raised US$7M from international bids to advance its oil exploration operations in Guyana.
The company has had to resort to onshore drilling after its offshore drilling programme was interrupted on June 3, 2000, when Surinamese gunboats forced it to remove its oil rig from its concession area.
Suriname claimed the area to be Surinamese territory. Guyana rejected the claim and on February 25 last asked the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany, to rule on the maritime boundary dispute between the two countries.
Guyana’s offshore zone is estimated to contain reserves of at least 1,200 million barrels of oil.