Curtis Milliams, T&T Guardian

PORT SPAIN
EnergiesNet.com 12 19 2022

Desperate to increase crude oil production, State-owned Heritage Petroleum Company is seeking to bring in private capital and resources to restart as many as 500 onland wells .

In an advertisement in the Sunday Guardian Heritage said it was seeking both local and international companies to operate inactive wells across its land operations.

It has given a deadline of next Monday at 4pm for companies to show interest.

Heritage sits on the largest land assets in the country and has for a long time not been able to increase production because of the nature of the stripper fields, the need for technology and capital to bring them on stream.

The Business Guardian (BG) reached out to Heritage and according to the company the 500 wells is the target of its first phase and the companies selected will have to put up the money to fund the well reactivation programme.

“Yes, the companies will have to invest the money upfront to bring the wells into production. In the first instance, oil will be sold in a similar manner to swabbing. Heritage will identify a location within the respective fields to receive fluids for fiscalization.”

Asked about the split in the revenue from the barrels of oil produced Heritage responded, “Payments will be on fiscalised oil produced and will be in accordance with the agreed price/bbl of oil.”

According to the company it is hoping the programme could begin as quickly as possible but the timeline was not completely in its hands.

“This time will depend on the selected Company’s work program to execute works on the wells.” Heritage told BG.

It added that any incremental production obtained will be beneficial to meeting output targets and added this is not an extension of either the farm out or Lease operatorship programmes.

Only recently Heritage’s Chairman Michael Quamina told the BG after just four years, there can be no doubt that Heritage Petroleum Company has surpassed expectations on the revenue side and was proud to be a major net earner of foreign exchange and a major contributor to the Government’s tax revenues.

“Moreover, based on our ambitious drilling programme in 2022 which saw nine successful wells drilled on land and one quite successful well offshore and with 11 wells carded to be drilled on shore and six offshore in 2023, along with a robust 2023-2025 forward drilling programme with additional prospect leads being matured at this time, the company is on a very healthy path, and well placed to meet without assistance, its very significant loan commitments which become due in 2023,” Quamina said.

In fiscal 2022, Heritage executed a ten well forward drilling programme on land. The program was completed in five months from May to September by operating two rigs (WSL Rig-2 & PCSL Rig-8) simultaneously. This approach accelerated the production contribution to Heritage. Both rigs were fully staffed with local labour. In total over 53,000ft was drilled. The wells drilled targeted the Cruse and Morne L’Enfer Reservoirs within the Palo Seco, Point Fortin, McKenzie and Forest Reserve Fields, the company noted.

It added that to date, eight wells have been placed on production, with an actual oil production rate of more than 500 barrels of oil per day (bopd). The drilling campaign has also identified possible follow up wells and uphole recompletion opportunities that have added to Heritage’s Reserves base, which the Company is currently working to quantify.

In addition, nine heavy workovers (HWO) were executed on its land fields that targeted existing producing intervals and uphole prospects and 863 well servicing jobs. In total twelve workover rigs and six swabbing rigs were in operation in 2022. On any given day there were estimated 240 personnel who worked over 760,000 man hours on these programs.

It is expected that 10-11 HWO Heavy workovers (HWO) will be completed in 2023 and in addition well servicing will continue to manage base decline.

Heritage has reportedly developed a very robust forward drilling program for 2023-2025, and drilling is expected to resume early in 2023 with another 10-11 well forward drilling program with 3-4 wells in Palo Seco and 6-7 wells in Forest Reserve and Point Fortin. Land drilling is to recommence in January 2023 with 2 land drilling rigs in operation during the year.

Meanwhile offshore, the first well was drilled in the offshore Soldado field by Heritage in September 2022 after the rig was received from EOG. This well will be put on production at the beginning of November 2022. Expected Initial Production of the Cruse C/D sands (IP) is 400 bopd.

Sixteen heavy offshore workovers were also completed and so far, have tested at ~800 bopd. Several wells are still to be tested, BG has learnt.

In 2023 five wells are planned in offshore Soldado, four wells in East Field and one well in Southwest Soldado. In addition, 10-12 HWO offshore have also been planned.

Business Guardian has been told that the Subsurface team has landed a robust forward drilling program for 2023-2025 of 18 offshore well and 20 land wells and several leads which will be matured as the subsurface and engineering work continues.

guardian.co.tt 12 16 2022