Oil explorer gets time to find partner

By Camilo Thame Business Co-ordinator thamec@jamaicaobserver.com

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

The Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) has given Rainville Energy four more months to get an investment partner on board its oil exploration work on three blocks offshore Jamaica.

In a press release on Monday, Sagres Energy, the parent of Rainville, said it was granted an extension to the first phase until April 30, 2012 to allow potential joint venture partners sufficient time to complete their evaluation of the Blocks.

The company said it was in discussions with several parties about a "farm-in" agreement, in which the new partner would assist with development costs.

"We look forward to advancing this project to the drilling stage and we are holding discussions with potential partners," said Sagres CEO Gary Wine.

When asked if it were likely that the company would be able to secure a deal by the new deadline, Wine told the Business Observer that "there is never enough time but its what we have to work with".

The Canadian firm already received a nine-month extension from the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) last March, bringing the deadline for it to decide whether it will proceed with phase two of the exploration work, which consists of completing a detailed analysis and drilling one well at each block, fell on December 15.

Sagres, whose three licences cover 8,800 square kilometres in shallow water (less than 30 metres) offshore Jamaica, announced last year that the blocks had a "seismic bump" that could have substantial amounts of hydrocarbon -three billion barrels - based on an independent evaluation of the resource potential prepared by Chapman Petroleum Engineering.

The minimum exploration work commitments under each of the production sharing agreements are divided into two phases.

The first phase involved the acquisition and processing of 2,458 km of 2D seismic data over blocks 9, 13 and 14 offshore Jamaica, which is basically acheived by sailing a survey ship along a straight line, towing a 'streamer' - an eight-kilometre long fibre optic cable containing hundreds of ultra-sensitive listening devices called hydrophones.