With its Round II Road Show coming to Houston, Uruguay wants to attract more players for its offshore exploration blocks.
Nestled between Brazil’s subsalt discoveries offshore to the northeast and Argentina’s shale gas plays to the west and southwest, Uruguay is pinning its hopes for discovering oil and gas on the activity in its neighbors.
The country’s Round II Road Show is making its way to Houston on Oct. 19 where Dr. Ramon Mendez, Uruguay director of energy, and several ANCAP managers will present the reasons why companies should invest in the hydrocarbons sector. The event will be at the Petroleum Club from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
ANCAP will be offering data rooms from Oct. 18-21 at the Hilton Americas. Companies can access the Uruguayan offshore databases of more than 30,000 km of 2D seismic along with gravimetric and magnetometric data, and well logs of the only two wells drilled offshore.
The latest round indicates how much the government would like to generate domestic oil and gas resources. The first round in 2009 didn’t attract as much interest as the country would have liked. Contracts were signed for Blocks 3 and 4 in the Punta del Este Basin by ANCAP with a consortium formed by Petrobras (40%), YPF (40%) and Galp (20%). YPF is the operator for Block 3 and Petrobras for Block 4.
Onshore, an exclusive hydrocarbon prospect contract was granted to Schuepbach Energy also in 2009. The contract called for a two-year work program to analyze the Devonian shale over the 2.4-million-acre area in the Norte Basin. The contract was scheduled to end in October. ANCAP has indicated that exploratory drilling will begin in 2012.
According to ANCAP, the onshore exploration work has shown similarities through geochemical research with the shale formations in the Neuquen Basin in Argentina.
What is at stake for Uruguay is up to an estimate of 20.6 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The U.S. Geological Service (USGS) estimated mean volumes in the Norte Basin at 13.4 Tcf and 500 million barrels of technically recoverable shale oil resources.
“The Norte Basin of Uruguay is the southern extension of the Parana Basin of Brazil,” the USGS noted in an August fact sheet titled “Assessment of Potential Shale Gas and Shale Oil Resources of the Norte Basin, Uruguay, 2011.”
The Devonian Cordobes formation is interpreted to be the principal source rock for shale oil and gas accumulations, stated USGS. The thickness of the Cordobes formation ranges up to 160 m (528 ft) with as much as 60 m (198 ft) of organic-rich shale.
While the onshore exploration is promising, Uruguay is pushing exploration of its offshore acreage. Following the initial presentation in Montevideo on Sept. 8, the country repeatedly emphasized the “strong political will of both the national authorities and the national oil company (ANCAP) for the offshore oil exploration and exploitation” of its resources “is a must not only for the current generation, but for future generations.”
The country is banking on finding more oil than gas offshore, which would boost its domestic energy balance considerably.
ANCAP is being cautious about the estimates since there hasn’t been enough drilling to confirm resources. The country has more offshore data having conducted a significant number of 2D and 3D surveys on its continental shelf.
Contact the author, Scott Weeden, at sweeden@hartenergy.com.
