Argentina's Enarsa signed several pacts with international partners for exploration offshore Argentina. Under a 10-year agreement, Enarsa and Spanish firm Repsol YPF have formed working groups to study Argentina's east coast from the Uruguay border to the Falkland Islands. The study area includes the San Jorge Gulf and the Austral Basin. As part of the contract, Chile's Sipetrol has taken a 33% interest in two Austral Basin areas, known as blocks E2. Repsol and Sipetrol acquired 3-D seismic data in the area in 2004 and plan to start drilling this year. Repsol expects that initial investment will be between $20- and $50 million. In another agreement, Repsol and Enarsa, with Brazil's Petrobras and Uruguay's Ancap, will explore three blocks in the deepwater Colorado Marina Basin. The companies plan to invest between $40- and $100 million in the venture. Repsol, the project operator, will process some 1,000 square kilometers of 3-D seismic gathered in the area. The first well is slated for 2008. -Peggy Williams 1 Colombia Chevron and state oil company Ecopetrol will invest $175 million in three wells in Chuchupa Field, located offshore northern La Guajira Department. Pre-drill estimates anticipate the addition of 250 million cu. ft. of gas per day, possibly in the second half of this year, according to Business News Americas. Chevron will drill the wells under its existing contract with Ecopetrol, which was extended in December 2003. That extension covered the economic life of the offshore field and onshore Ballena Field. The two fields produce a combined 500 million cu. ft. of gas per day. 2 Colombia The Global Energy Development affiliate of Harken Energy landed the Caracoli concession contract from the National Hydrocarbons Agency, bringing to seven the number of contracts the company holds in Colombia. The new 90,000-acre concession is in the Catatumbo Basin, a southwestern extension of Venezuela's Maracaibo Basin. More than 800 million bbl. of oil have been produced from the Catatumbo Basin in Colombia. During the first year of the contract, Global will acquire 90 kilometers of 2-D seismic and reprocess another 210 kilometers of existing seismic. Harken is based in Southlake, Texas. 3 Peru Houston-based BPZ Energy Inc. plans to drill a well this summer in Corvina Field on its Z-1 Block, offshore northern Peru. BPZ will bring the gas ashore to feed a power plant. The company is refurbishing the existing CX-11 platform over Corvina, and also plans to build a gas pipeline into southern Ecuador. The Z-1 Block is a mainly shallow-water block that covers nearly 750,000 acres. 4 Brazil Petrobras has revealed its $18-billion master plan for the development of five areas in the offshore Santos Basin during the next 10 years. The 352,000-square-kilometer basin extends from the state of Rio de Janeiro, along the coastline of the states of São Paulo and Parana, to the northern portion of the state of Santa Catarina. Petrobras and its partners hold 40,663 square kilometers of exploratory concessions in the basin. The Merluza area, which produces 42 million cu. ft. of gas and 1,600 bbl. of condensate per day, is already being developed. Petrobras plans to expand output from the Merluza-1 platform production, and install the Merluza-2 platform. The other projects that will benefit from substantial investments are Mexilhao Field, the BS-500 block, the South area and the Center area. 5 Argentina Canada's Petrolifera Petroleum Ltd. tested its RN-PM a-1010 well on the Puesto Morales/Rinconada concession in the Neuquen Basin for approximately 2,500 bbl. of oil per day from two zones in the Punta Rosada formation. Later, the company plans to test potential of the Sierras Blancas formation. Petrolifera will move the service rig to the RN-PM a-1011 well, located east of the 1003 discovery. Following that, it plans to test its 1005 well, an indicated Quintuco formation discovery. 6 Norway After Eni drilled a successful appraisal well at its Goliat discovery in Production License 229 in the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate raised its estimate for the discovery to 250 million bbl. of oil equivalent, composed of 75% oil and 25% gas. Most of the reserves are in the Kobbe formation. The 7122/7-3 appraisal was important for several reasons: it confirmed the presence of commercial oil in the region, it increased Goliat reserves and it confirmed production from a deeper formation in the Hammerfest Basin. The company did not conduct a production test, so well logs and core samples were used for the estimate. The well, located 85 kilometers northwest of Hammerfest, was drilled in 343 meters of water to a depth of 2,701 meters. It encountered a gross hydrocarbon column of 180 meters. 7 Libya Spanish firm Repsol YPF has made its seventh discovery in Block NC186 in the Murzuq Basin. The K1 well flowed at the rate of 2,300 bbl. of oil per day. It was drilled just a few kilometers from the I1 and J1 discoveries, which were made last year and yielded preliminary production figures of 2,060 bbl. and 4,650 bbl. of oil per day, respectively. Block NC186 is in the Sahara Desert, 800 kilometers south of Tripoli, and it covers 4,300 sq. kilometers. Two discoveries on the block are currently producing around 50,000 bbl. per day. Repsol operates the block and owns a 12.8% interest; its partners are National Oil Corp., with 60 %; Total, with 9.6 %; OMV, with 9.6 %; and Norsk Hydro, 8%. 8 Equatorial Guinea Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy plans to drill up to three appraisal wells on its Venus discovery on offshore Block P before the end of this year. The discovery was drilled in shallow waters to a depth of 2,163 meters and hit 46 meters of net oil pay. It was subsequently sidetracked downdip and hit 35 meters of net oil pay. In separate activity, Houston-based Noble Energy will spud the first of between three and five exploration and appraisal wells during the third quarter. The company has contracted a drillship for the program. Noble operates blocks O and I offshore Equatorial Guinea, and last October made a natural gas and condensate discovery at its O-1 prospect. 9 Yemen U.K. independent Burren Energy signed a production sharing agreement with Yemen's Ministry of Oil and Minerals to operate onshore Block 6 in the Shabwa Basin. The 3,900-square-kilometer block lies between major oil and gas producing areas to the west and Block S2 to the east. Burren will focus on the basement potential in Block 6, which has not been explored by previous operators. The company intends to acquire a 3-D seismic survey over the most prospective area this year and drill in 2007. 10 Russia Russia's Lukoil claimed a major northern Caspian Sea discovery with a wildcat on the Yuzhno-Rakushechnaya structure that tested at 5,864 bbl. of light-gravity oil per day. The well was drilled in the Severny license area in the Russian sector, some 220 kilometers from Astrakhan. Lukoil assigned probable and possible reserves for the field at 600 million bbl. of oil and 1.2 trillion cu. ft. of gas. 11 China Political pressure eased as Japan accepted a Chinese proposal for joint development of resources in contested areas of the East China Sea. The two countries still must decide on interests and other details. Japan had objected to a plan by China National Offshore Oil Corp. to start natural gas production from the Chunxiao block in the East China Sea, about halfway between the Chinese mainland and Okinawa. Japan said the structure that contained the gas was partly under Japanese waters. China disagreed, and Japan threatened to start its own developments in the disputed area. 12 Malaysia The Shell-Petronas Carigali-ConocoPhillips joint venture has made its fourth oil and gas discovery offshore Sabah, East Malaysia, with the Pisagan-1A exploration well in Block G. The Pisagan-1A, drilled in 1,465 meters of water, encountered both oil and gas in the reservoir objective. The partners drilled discoveries at their Malikai-1 well in 2004, the Gumusut-1 in 2004 and the Ubah-2 in 2005. 13 Australia Woodside Petroleum has completed two appraisal wells in its Browse Gas project, located offshore northwest Australia. The most recent well was the Calliance-1, which is located in WA-28-R, around 12 kilometers northwest of the Brecknock South-1 well in 574 meters of water. The well reached a total depth of 4,177 meters and intersected a gross 172-meter column in the Plover formation. A production test in the main interval flowed 41 million cu. ft. of gas per day, and a second zone flowed at 20 million per day. The other appraisal, Brecknock-2, intersected a gross gas column of 151 meters. Woodside plans to sign preliminary gas sales agreements to develop the Browse fields as a stand-alone LNG project with start-up in 2011. The project partners are Woodside, BP, Chevron, BHP Billiton and Shell. 14 Australia A group of majors has been awarded exploration rights to permit W05-16 in the Carnarvon Basin, offshore Western Australia. The block lies in the highly prospective Greater Gorgon area. Chevron will operate the block and hold a 50% interest, and Shell and ExxonMobil will each have 25% shares. The W05-16 permit area covers 2,650 sq. kilometers and lies around 100 kilometers northwest of Barrow Island. The Greater Gorgon area partners are gearing up to finalize a development plan worth more than $8 billion, which could see the delivery of 10 million tonnes a year of LNG to export markets by 2011.