GEORGE­TOWN – The Span­ish oil ex­plo­ration firm Rep­sol yes­ter­day signed a new oil ex­plo­ration con­ces­sion off­shore agree­ment with Guyana.Pres­i­dent Don­ald Ramo­tar and Rep­sol's di­rec­tor, Jose A. Muril­las signed the four-year prospect­ing li­cense for the 6,525 square kilo­me­tre con­ces­sion lo­cat­ed 100 miles sea­wards off the mouth of the Berbice Riv­er. The two sides al­so signed a pro­duc­tion-shar­ing agree­ment.

The con­ces­sion in­cludes part of Rep­sol's pre­vi­ous 8,000 square kilo­me­tre con­ces­sion. The Min­istry of Nat­ur­al Re­sources and the En­vi­ron­ment said, " Rep­sol is anx­ious to com­mence work oblig­a­tions which in­clude new 2D and 3D ma­rine seis­mic ac­qui­si­tion in the first phase, to be fol­lowed by an ex­plo­ration well in the sec­ond phase of the li­cence which has been grant­ed for an ini­tial pe­ri­od of four years.

"This award of Pe­tro­le­um Prospect­ing Li­cence and Agree­ment comes at a time when drilling on sev­er­al fronts have oc­curred in Guyana re­cent­ly and on the heels of the award of new li­cences off­shore for con­ces­sion acreage to Anadarko Guyana Com­pa­ny and CGX Re­sources Inc. And, at a time when there has been a sus­tained in­ter­est in the po­ten­tial for com­mer­cial pe­tro­le­um dis­cov­er­ies in Guyana's mar­itime ar­eas," the min­istry said in a state­ment.

In Ju­ly 2012, a con­sor­tium led by Rep­sol, capped an oil ex­plo­ration well off­shore Guyana due to safe­ty con­cerns.

CMC