After nearly two decades, the three U.S. oil firms that form the Oasis group have returned to Libya. After last-minute concessions, Amerada Hess, ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil have sent workers back to the North African state to resume work on operations they were forced to abandon when the U.S. imposed sanctions in 1986. The firms have agreed to pay the Libyan government a reentry fee of $1.3 billion to extend their concessions in Waha Field by 25 years. They also will contribute $530 million for unamortized investments made since 1986 that were agreed on as part of a standstill agreement to hold the assets in escrow for the consortium. Marathon said it expects to add more than 160 million barrels of oil equivalent to its proved reserves as a result of the Libyan operations. The Houston company also projected an additional 40,000 to 45,000 net barrels per day in 2006 from its stake in the concession. ConocoPhillips and Marathon each hold a 16.3% stake interest in the concessions while Hess holds 8.2%, and the Libyan National Oil Corp. holds the additional 59.2%. -Hart's E&P 1 Trinidad and Tobago BG Group, lead partner in Atlantic LNG, has produced first commercial liquefied natural gas (LNG) at Train 4 at Port Fortin on the island of Trinidad. The new plant will put out 5.2 million metric tons a year, making it one of the larger LNG trains in the world. Combined capacity for all four trains is 15 million metric tons per year. BG and its partners spent some $1.2 billion on the project. 2 Venezuela Repsol YPF and Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) will set up a joint venture to develop the giant Quiamare-La Ceiba oil complex in western Venezuela after the Spanish-Argentine company bought out ExxonMobil's 25% participation in the field. The complex produces 15,000 bbl. of oil per day. At about the same time, Venezuela's tax organization handed Repsol YPF a $113.4-million bill for delinquent taxes. As part of Venezuela's reorganization of its oil and gas industry, the government has handed down tax interpretations that raise bills for back taxes a total of $3 billion for 22 multinational companies. The industry revision also forces companies to enter new contracts in which PDVSA owns at least 51% of every operation. ExxonMobil is the only company that had not accepted the less profitable terms of the new contracts. 3 Peru Northern Peru's Loreto Department attracted attention as Occidental Petroleum Corp. posted a light-oil discovery on Block 64 with its Situche Central 2X well. At 17,738 ft., the well is the deepest in Peru, according to news agency Business News Americas. The nation's energy regulatory agency estimates initial potential at 2,400 bbl. of oil per day. Oxy and partners Amerada Hess and Talisman Energy invested $50 million in the well. 4 Iceland Reykjavik Energy is lining up the largest drilling program ever attempted in Iceland as it contracted with Iceland Drilling Co. for projects in the Hellisheidi and Mount Hengill geothermal areas. Drilling in the $117.42-million program is scheduled to begin this spring and will last at least three years. Some 40 wells are planned, including 30 high-temperature tests. The companies worked with Baker Hughes Inteq to determine directional-drilling techniques suited to Icelandic geology. The wells will target steam from fracture systems and faults, particularly in the Hellisheidi area. 5 Faroe Islands Statoil has committed to drill a wildcat on the Brugdan prospect in License 006 off the Faroe Islands this summer. That commitment will override existing commitments to drill in the 001 and 003 license areas, and the partners in those licenses will become partners in license 006. The well will be the first test drilled through the Faroese basalt and should provide valuable guidelines for future wells on the Faroese continental shelf. Statoil's partners in the venture are DONG, Anadarko Petroleum, Enterprise Oil (Shell), Amerada Hess, BG Group, Faroe Petroleum and Atlantic Petroleum. 6 U.K. U.K. firm Dana Petroleum will drill an appraisal well in Babbage Field in the 48/2 Block in the U.K. Southern North Sea before deciding on its development scheme. Dana, which acquired a 40% interest in the block from Shell last year, says Babbage Field has the potential to contain up to 390 billion cu. ft. of gas in place in Permian-age Rotliegend sandstone reservoirs. 7 Norway Statoil and Norsk Hydro, partners in the massive Troll Field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, apparently are at odds on development options for the production of the field's 63.6 trillion cu. ft. of gas and 2 billion bbl. of oil, according to a Dow Jones news report. A proposal is due before the Norwegian oil minister in late 2006. Norsk Hydro would like to conduct more studies to make sure the team gets maximum oil recovery, while Statoil would like to increase gas production to 1.4 billion cu. ft. per day. The Troll gas reservoir is on the east and the oil reservoir is on the west. Norsk Hydro contends that too-rapid gas production from either side could damage oil recoveries. Other partners in the project are Petoro, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and Total. 8 Austria Austria's OMV has drilled a discovery in the Vienna Basin at its Ebenthal Thief 1, a wildcat 19 miles northeast of Vienna. Gas was encountered at 11,155 ft. OMV plans to put the well in production in 2007 at a rate of approximately 21.2 million cu. ft. per day. Potential reserves are in the range of 50 billion cu. ft. The company currently produces 44.14 billion cu. ft. of gas a year in Austria, and is trying to grow its production. 9 Romania Romania's Petrom has acquired exploration licenses on three exploration blocks coving 5,792 sq. miles. The company, now 51% owned by OMV, is the largest oil and gas producer in southeastern Europe. Under the licensing procedure, Petrom will conduct seismic exploration including approximately 1,677 miles of 2-D seismic and approximately 39 sq. miles of 3-D seismic during the next three years, and drill nine exploratory wells. The three blocks are Maramures in northern Romania, and Giuriu and Rosiori in southern Romania. Petrom wants to stabilize its oil and gas production in Romania at a daily rate of 210,000 bbl. of oil equivalent by 2010. 10 Uganda Australian firm Hardman Resources has said its exploration well in Uganda encountered oil shows but the company is trying to keep expectations in check. The Mputa-1 on Block 2 in the Albertine Basin recorded oil shows in two intervals and wireline logs have indicated that the intervals are hydrocarbon-bearing. A wireline pressure and sampling program has started and oil samples have been recovered from the first such interval, a sand of approximately 33 ft. in gross thickness at a depth of 3,165 ft. However, Hardman says reservoir sands were poorer than expected for some of the objective levels. The well will be plugged and abandoned after testing is completed, and the rig will be moved to the Waraga-1 location approximately 12 miles northeast. Tullow Oil, based in the U.K., owns a 50% interest in the project. 11 Russia The front-end engineering and design contract for Yuzhnoye Khylchuyu Field has been awarded to NaryanMarNefteGaz, a joint venture of Lukoil and ConocoPhillips. The $1.5-billion complex is approximately 75 miles northeast of Naryan-Mar and 1,428 miles north-northeast of Moscow in the Nenets area of European Russia. The first phase of construction in the field will produce some 60,000 bbl. of oil per day by the end of 2007. By year-end 2008, the venture plans to have full-field production online at a rate of 165,000 bbl. of oil per day. The project includes gathering lines, a central processing plant and a 100-mile pipeline to Lukoil's Varandei terminal. 12 Uzbekistan The government of Uzbekistan plans to sign a $280-million production-sharing agreement with a consortium of companies including state oil company Uzbekneftegaz, Lukoil, Petronas, Korea National Oil Corp. and China National Petro -leum Corp. The group will concentrate its exploration efforts on the dry seabed of the Aral Sea in western Ustyrt. Eight oil and condensate fields have been found in that area. 13 Pakistan A consortium of companies headed by Pakistan's Government Holding Private Ltd. received an offshore production-sharing agreement. Partners include Shell, Premier Oil, Kufpec, Oil and Gas Development Co. Ltd. and Pakistan Petroleum Ltd., according to a Reuters report. The $18-million work program signed by the organization calls for an exploratory well in the Indus E Block. The block is about 93 miles offshore Karachi in more than 3,280 ft. of water. 14 China Lufeng 13-2 Field has come onstream in the eastern part of the South China Sea flowing at a rate of 18,000 bbl. of oil per day from three horizontal wells. The field is CNOOC Ltd.'s first independently operated project in the eastern South China Sea. The tract is in western Block LF 08 in the Pearl River Mouth Basin in some 433 ft. of water, about 130 miles southeast of Hong Kong.