With strong oil prices and the need to produce more domestic crude meet of its Pointe-a-Pierre refinery, Petrotrin's president Kenneth Allum says he has a plan that would, by the end of 2012, see Petrotrin increase its production by at least 8,000 barrels of oil a day. Allum's prediction is based on the company pursuing an aggressive drilling programme which, he said, would reverse the decline in Petrotrin's crude production and lead to better revenue streams for the company. "We have started our drilling programme in Trinmar. We plan to drill 21 wells this year and already we have drilled two. The wells are going to be a mixture of development and exploration wells. We believe this will allow us to meet our goal of increasing crude production by another 8,000 barrels of oil.
Allum spoke with the Business Guardian following Petrotrin's signing on to be a carried partner in three of the four blocks in which production sharing contracts were signed between exploration and production companies and the Ministry of Energy. Allum said these wells will be drilled in Trinmar's main, north and east fields and, by the end of this year, will lead to an increase of 2,000 bpd. He said the company's South West Soldado field will not be included in the initial drilling programme. It is expected that the company can get another 6,000 bpd out of this field. According to experts, Trinmar has significant potential to increase its production of more than 35,000 bpd. For February production, out of Trinmar's operations was a mere 22,838 bpd, but that was still 717 bpd more than what was recorded for January. "We have a separate strategy for Trinmar's South West Soldado operations. We have wells in there that can produce, but we do not have the facilities to take the additional crude. As a result, we have decided that we will have to spend a lot of money to improve the infrastructure and then we will be able to bring that additional crude to market."
It is expected that Trinmar will have to install a new compressor facility to accommodate a reactivated South West Soldado field. It is also expected that Petrotrin will also continue its programme of replacing pipelines and strengthening its offshore infrastructure. The Business Guardian has been reliably informed that the Trinmar acreage has 706 producible wells, but only 282 of them were currently in production. Only recently, Energy Minister Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan told the Energy Chamber that she had directed the state-owned company to increase its crude production. She said: "As you know, even with strong oil prices T&T is not benefitting in the way it should due to low production, so you can trust that I share your concern and intend to ensure that the way forward is one agreed to by all stakeholders."
She added: "We are also holding Petrotrin to performance and in this fiscal year, the company has been mandated to boost production by 8,000 barrels per day."
This was repeated by the company chairman, former energy minister Lindsay Gillette, who said the company had to increase its domestic crude and it must be done in a timely fashion. Allum notes that Petrotrin was also confident that it will be able to make new discoveries in its South West acreage because of the 3D seismic, which it recently shot. "It is the first time we are shooting 3D seismic in this part of our acreage and we feel confident that just as other companies have made discoveries we too will make some discoveries."