Repsol comes up dry on Pinter One well

Spanish energy giant Repsol has failed to find any hydrocarbons on its Pinter One well which was drilled off the east coast. The dry hole represents a major failure for the company which has been trying to boost its falling crude production from its Teak Samman and Pouis acreage.

In addition, the dry hole is further bad news for the country as the Pinter One well was expected to sure up a discovery made by Bayfield Energy Company in its EG 8 well on the Galeota block. Bayfield has since been acquired by Trinity Explorations and Production Company Ltd. 

Trinity’s chief executive officer Joel Monty Pemberton told the Business Guardian that while his company was aware of the failure of the well, it was not in a position to comment on the implications for its own discovery since it had not seen the results which are held by Repsol. 

Asked if he would admit that the failure of the well to show that the discovery extended into Repsol’s acreage, as was originally thought, would necessary lead to a reduction in the calculated reserves, Pemberton said that made logical sense, but he was still not in a position to speak definitively about the matter. 

Highly placed sources at Repsol said the well began drilling on December 26, 2013, after it was approved by the ministry’s chief technical officer Richard Jeremy. It was wrapped up in February after reaching its total depth and failing to find hydrocarbons. Bayfield, not Trinity’s EG8 discovery, was announced in March 2012 with great fanfare by the Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine. 

It was drilled to a total depth of 8,133 feet (2,479 metres with well sands totals 421 feet (128 metres), of which 352 feet (107 metres) is gas and 69 feet (21 metres) is oil.” Bayfield, at the time, said EG8 was deviated from its surface location towards the south west in order to target the crestal area of mapped horizons in the prospective EG2/EG5 Central fault block. “The well encountered ten hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone reservoir zones between 1,364 feet (416 metres) and 6,000 feet (1,829 metres) below mean sea level.” 

Energy consultant Helena Inniss-King at the time said it is too early to say exactly how much oil is in the block or in the well because enough tests have not been done. She said it is a good start to the programme, but more studies are needed. Further, she noted no appraisal wells had been drilled to determine the size of the find and, at best, it was premature.

Bayfield had told the London Stock Exchange that a comprehensive programme of logging and sampling had been conducted and samples of oil were collected in the oil zone and a mini-drill stem test (mini-DST) was conducted on wireline. “The data confirms light oil and good quality reservoir with production potential of more than 1,000 barrels of oil per day. Samples of gas and gas condensate were also collected in other reservoirs.”

Bayfield is currently integrating the new well data into the 3d seismic mapping to study the impact on contingent and prospective resources. The company said EG8 well has demonstrated development potential of 32 million barrels (mmbbls) of oil and 69 billion standard cubic feet (bscf) of gas in the EG2/EG5/EG8 central and east fault blocks. 

Initial interpretation suggests that substantially all of the gas potential lies within the Galeota licence, though the oil potential extends into an adjacent licence in which Bayfield has no participating interest. The adjacent field referred to at the time was Repsol’s block. Like Bayfield, the Spanish giant also used the jack-up drilling unit, Rowan Gorilla III. Unlike Bayfield, though, it failed to find anything.