Aleem Khan

Rig ac­tiv­i­ty is up in the south­west penin­su­la as work­ers are strik­ing for bet­ter wages. At the same time fish­er­men are ham­mer­ing for com­pen­sa­tion. All this in Petrotrin's new­ly re­newed Trin­mar li­censed acreage.

As part of its Jan­u­ary 2013 li­censed com­mit­ment, Petrotrin is in­vest­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $7 bil­lion in the Trin­mar and North Ma­rine acreages be­tween 2013 and 2017.

This fig­ure is part of a to­tal in­vest­ment es­ti­mate of $12 bil­lion for Petrotrin's up­stream op­er­a­tions for the equiv­a­lent pe­ri­od, in­clu­sive of its land and joint ven­ture op­er­a­tions. Com­mon­ly re­ferred to as the Trin­mar Acreage, the TNA Li­cence Area com­pris­es 75,737 hectares, lo­cat­ed off the south­west penin­su­la of Trinidad.

Fish­er­men hop­ing to catch fish in Ce­dros staged a wa­ter-based protest on June 8 de­mand­ing com­pen­sa­tion for in­con­ve­nience in the mar­itime space where Petrotrin is now drilling, and where they hap­pen to al­so have been mak­ing a liv­ing for years pri­or.

A lit­tle known strike al­so took place on the Los Gal­los 1 well, an im­por­tant well among those to meet the Gov­ern­ment's pro­duc­tion tar­gets. It is be­lieved to con­tain up­ward of 20 mil­lion bar­rels of oil, and could con­tain as much as 80 mil­lion bar­rels.

"Petrotrin wish­es to ad­vise that work in­ter­rup­tion on the Well Ser­vices Rig 110, cur­rent­ly on site at Petrotrin's Los Gal­los 1 ex­plo­ration well lo­ca­tion in our Trin­mar li­censed area is a mat­ter be­tween our Rig Con­trac­tor Well Ser­vices Ltd (WSL) and the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU), the rep­re­sen­ta­tive union for WSL's em­ploy­ees," Petrotrin's cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment said in a state­ment on Tues­day.

Joy An­toine, spokesper­son for Petrotrin, said Petrotrin had put out an in­ter­nal com­mu­nique on the sta­tus of ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the OW­TU and Petrotrin, and she was con­fi­dent Petrotrin work­ers would not be en­gaged in any il­le­gal ac­tion.

"It's be­tween Well Ser­vices, a pri­vate con­trac­tor, and the OW­TU. Al­though it would im­pact us, it is not our em­ploy­ees. That re­in­forces the point that it is not Petrotrin em­ploy­ees," she said by tele­phone when first con­tact­ed on June 7. "We were not aware."

En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine told the Sen­ate on June 4 that Petrotrin has "al­most 409,000 acres un­der its di­rect con­trol in both its land and ma­rine as­sets. In its land and Trin­mar op­er­a­tions, for fis­cal 2012, a to­tal of 2,216 wells were on pro­duc­tion of which 1,886 wells are on land and 330 are in the ma­rine area.

"It is in­volved in 24 joint ven­tures and it is one of this coun­try's largest em­ploy­ers with 4,300 per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees and 1,200 tem­po­rary work­ers on its pay­roll. The com­pa­ny al­so sup­ports a pen­sion­er base in­clu­sive of spous­es and ben­e­fi­cia­ries of 5,400 peo­ple.

"For the fi­nan­cial year 2011/2012, the com­pa­ny's gross rev­enue was $37.6 bil­lion. In fis­cal 2012 Petrotrin con­tributed $5.1 bil­lion in terms of gov­ern­ment rev­enue by way of tax­es and roy­al­ty."

Petrotrin lo­cal pro­duc­tion to in­crease

Petrotrin al­so op­er­ates the on­ly re­fin­ery in T&T, and that re­fin­ery has a through­put ca­pac­i­ty of 168,000 bar­rels of oil per day (bopd), he said. The di­et of that re­fin­ery is sup­plied 40 per cent from lo­cal crude oil, and 60 per cent from im­port­ed crude oil. "How­ev­er, giv­en the cur­rent na­tion­al thrust in ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty aimed at in­creas­ing lo­cal crude oil pro­duc­tion, lo­cal crude sup­ply to the Petrotrin re­finer­ies is ex­pect­ed to in­crease."

Ram­nar­ine said in 2011, 13 wells were drilled in Trin­mar (acreage); 16 wells in 2012; in 2013, 12 and count­ing; and that 17 wells are planned for 2014.

He said: "These da­ta demon­strate a con­scious and de­lib­er­ate shift in pol­i­cy as it flows from the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs to Petrotrin. This is a pol­i­cy that re­fo­cus­es the com­pa­ny on its huge up­stream oil po­ten­tial.

Among the key up­stream ini­tia­tives em­ployed are land-based 3D seis­mic. In 2011, the com­pa­ny com­plet­ed the largest on­shore 3D seis­mic ac­qui­si­tion pro­gramme ever wit­nessed in T&T, ac­quir­ing 312 square kilo­me­ters of 3D seis­mic over the South­west­ern on­shore penin­su­la. Cur­rent­ly, these da­ta have been processed and are un­der­go­ing fo­cused re­pro­cess­ing as re­quired."

Two in­ter­pre­ta­tion teams have been de­ployed, he said, one in Hous­ton and one at in Trinidad. Both teams, Ram­nar­ine told the Sen­ate, have re­port­ed en­cour­ag­ing leads, with the first the ex­plo­ration well ex­pect­ed to be drilled by the end of cal­en­dar 2013. The de­vel­op­ment team has al­ready used its in­ter­pre­ta­tion re­sults to in­form the com­pa­ny's on­shore drilling pro­gramme, and is al­so us­ing these re­sults to build the for­ward drilling plan for the com­pa­ny on land, he said.

Both the Gov­ern­ment and Petrotrin re­alised that there re­mains tremen­dous po­ten­tial in the Sol­da­do fields, and in the Trin­mar and North Ma­rine acreages, he said. "The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs on De­cem­ber 31, 2012, grant­ed a new li­cence to Petrotrin for the Trin­mar and North Ma­rine acreages. This re­placed the 30-year lease that was grant­ed in 1982 by the then Min­is­ter of Pe­tro­le­um and Mines Patrick Man­ning.

The com­pa­ny has com­menced the ful­fil­ment of the oblig­a­tions of its new li­cence, and is ag­gres­sive­ly pur­su­ing fur­ther ini­tia­tives that will lead to in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty, pro­duc­tion and pe­tro­le­um re­serve lev­els in the com­ing months or years. That will be, of course, very good news for the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my (Lar­ry Howai)," he said.

As­set in­tegri­ty is­sues

At present, in Trin­mar, there are three rigs work­ing; one drilling rig and two work-over rigs. Work-over in the oil in­dus­try rough­ly trans­lates to mean a rig be­ing main­tained while still func­tion­ing. One of these work-over rigs is ded­i­cat­ed to the south-west Sol­da­do re­ac­ti­va­tion project. A ma­jor com­ple­ment of wells and fa­cil­i­ties in the com­pa­ny's south­west Sol­da­do field was shut-in over years as a re­sult of as­set in­tegri­ty is­sues, he said.

From ear­ly 2012, Petrotrin de­ployed a ded­i­cat­ed, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary team to un­der­take the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the south-west Sol­da­do field, and it is ex­pect­ed that ini­tial in­cre­men­tal pro­duc­tion from these ef­forts will ac­crue to the com­pa­ny from Ju­ly 2013 and in­crease there­after, Ram­nar­ine said.

Based on the fore­go­ing, he said, "It is ev­i­dent that the com­pa­ny has syn­chro­nised its ef­forts to match the Gov­ern­ment's stat­ed en­er­gy pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives. It is al­so recog­nised that ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion ac­tiv­i­ties re­quire long ges­ta­tion pe­ri­ods pri­or to the de­vel­op­ment of re­sults. But, based on the com­pa­ny's ju­di­cial bal­ance of ex­plo­ration, de­vel­op­ment, op­er­a­tional, tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties, the ear­ly signs of im­prove­ment are ev­i­dent. These are be­ing seen in pro­duc­tion lev­els in the com­pa­ny's op­er­at­ed land and Trin­mar hold­ings sta­bil­is­ing at 13,500 bar­rels of oil per day for land, and 22,500 bar­rels of oil per day, with­in re­cent times at Trin­mar. These are, of course, en­cour­ag­ing signs and we ex­pect bet­ter re­sults in the com­ing months."

Ram­nar­ine said: "As the com­pa­ny deals with the lega­cy is­sues of the Gas Op­ti­mi­sa­tion Pro­gramme (GOP) and the Gas-to-liq­uids (GTL) plant, it has re­fo­cused it­self on the up­stream. The com­pa­ny has been sta­bilised and has been pulled back from the edge, and it is poised for growth in pro­duc­tion, which will no doubt re­dound to the ben­e­fit of T&T."