Speaking at the annual Trinidad & Tobago Energy Conference in Port of Spain earlier today, Dr David Rainey, President of Exploration for BHP Billiton Petroleum, confirmed that the Trinidad & Tobago deep-water represented a “tier one” prospect for the company.
Dr Rainey explained that BHP Billiton’s company strategy was to concentrate their exploration activities on a small number of basins in the world that they considered top tier prospects. These basins needed to have the potential for petroleum systems with upwards of 5 billion barrels of oil in place and be able to deliver at least 100,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day to BHPB. BHP Billiton recently completed a massive seismic acquisition campaign in their Trinidad & Tobago deep-water acreage which has increased their confidence in the geology and the potential of the basin. Dr Rainey explained that the company also looked to be a first mover into a new oil basin, where they had the potential to discover the largest reservoirs in the early stages of a basin’s life.
BHP Billiton will be drilling two wildcat prospects in their Trinidad & Tobago deep-water acreage in 2016, with the possibility of a third well depending on the outcome of the first two wells. Dr Rainey provided details on the first structure that they plan to drill, named the LeClerc prospect. This is a very large geological structure that shows potential for significant hydrocarbon accumulations, which BHPB are confident is oil rather than gas, based on the results of a piston core test.
Dr Rainey was speaking at the Trinidad & Tobago Energy Conference, organised by the Energy Chamber of Trinidad & Tobago. The annual conference is the biggest energy conference in the Caribbean region and has attracted approximately 600 conference delegates despite the depressed commodity price environment.