Predator upbeat on recent developments in Trinidad

Jersey-based Predator Oil & Gas Holdings updated the market on its progress onshore Trinidad on Thursday, reporting that the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) has issued a Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) to Fram Exploration Trinidad.

The London-listed firm said Fram is the operator of the Inniss-Trinity field, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Columbus Energy Resources.

It said the CEC approved the injection of locally-sourced carbon dioxide, which would be provided through arrangements developed and progressed exclusively by Predator.

Subject to further consultations with Heritage Petroleum Company, and obtaining requisite consents, permits and approvals from the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries, carbon dioxide operations could start in the AT-4 Block within the Inniss-Trinity oil field.

On the operational front, Predator said that during the period awaiting the issue of the CEC, it had maintained a “very low level” of expenditure which was targeted at achieving an optimum well completion design for the AT-4 and AT-5X wells.

The focus had been to potentially isolate downhole individual Herrera reservoir sands for a carbon dioxide injectivity test, to determine the extent to which reservoir sands could be separately repressured, and what maximum initial oil flow rate could be achieved for comparison with the base line production rate for the wells.

It said the new completion design would concentrate the carbon dioxide injection into only the most productive sands, to potentially accelerate the rate of reservoir pressure build-up and reduce the volume of carbon dioxide required to achieve initial oil production.

That should enhance project economics, if the operational plan was successfully executed and the reservoirs performed according to the desk-top reservoir engineering models, and underpinned the guidance on potential net-backs per barrel as previously announced, despite the lower oil prices currently being experienced.

Data collected from monitoring the AT-4 and AT-5X wells during injection and production would help assess the potential for reservoir communication, and was required for planning the upscaling of operations to a full-field carbon dioxide project.

“Fram will shortly use a workover rig to survey downhole the AT-4 and AT-5X wells to ensure there are no obstructions that would prevent Predator's downhole completion design from being installed across the Herrera sand interval chosen for the first injectivity and production test,” the Predator board said in its statement.

“A further operational update will be issued once the downhole well survey results are available.”