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PDVSA will be exporting LNG by the end of 2014
oilonline
CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com, May 15, 2008Venezuela's oil company PDVSA plans to be exporting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) gas by the end of 2014, PDVSA's Manager, E & P Offshore Joint Ventures and Mariscal Sucre project manager, Ruben Figuera told the audience of The La Jolla Energy conference hosted this week in California by the Institute of the Americas.
Venezuela will begin this month a 3 year, 60 wells drilling campaign in the LNG offshore project Mariscal Sucre, with the gas fields locate in northeaster Venezuela Caribbean sea, north of the Paria Peninsula, next to Trinidad island. The Mariscal Sucre reserves are in the order of 18.6 TCF (trillion cubic feet)
PDVSA is engaging the drilling campaign on its own, but is to close to select partners to build two 14.7 TCF LNG liquefaction trains at SIGMA plant.
"We are in the process of selecting our partners ... and hope to begin ( SIGMA LNG plant project) in the third or fourth quarter," Figuera said
The two liquefaction trains and pipelines to connect offshore gas fields with the plant are in the cost order of $8.3 billion, according to the latest PDVSA estimate, Figuera added.
PDVSA is currently in talks with several international oil companies including Gazprom, Chevron, Total and state oil companies such as Norway's Statoil and financial potential partners including , Marubeni, Itochu, Mitsubishi and Japan LNG, to take part in the developing of the SIGMA LNG plant in the city of Guiria next to the Gulf of Paria, on the atlantic coast.
In addition, the joint ventures of PDVSA with Chevron, Statoil and Total at the offshore Deltana Platform area fields, off the Atlantic coast, are to add to the supply gas to the SIGMA liquefaction trains.
The Deltana drilling program is supposed to add nearly 20 TCF of natural gas reserves, of that 8.3 TCF are proven reserves and certified, Figuera said.
So far, proven reserves in the four Deltana blocks where exploratory wells were drilled total only 6.4 TCF, mainly in Chevron Corp's Block 2, at the Loran field with 5.7 TCF of proven reserves and less than 200 billion cubic feet (BCF) at the Statoil Block 4, Cocuina field, Figuera's presentation told the audience.
Deltana's Lorean field is connected with Trinidad's Manatee field also operated by Chevron and both countries are to sign a unitization of the fields agreement in order to continue with the development of Lorean.
"These are the numbers the companies presented," Figuera told reporters after his speech. "There is enough gas there for a project ", Robert Campbell of Reuters quoted.
The plan is that Chevron will supply gas from Deltana Block 2 to the first SIGMA liquefaction train while PDVSA will supply the gas to the second train from Mariscal Sucre fields.
PDVSA signed on Tuesday an agreement with Portugal's Galp to create a joint venture to produce and transport LNG at SIGMA LNG plant.
Also, PDVSA as a similar agreement with Argentina's Enarsa to produce and transport LNG at SIGMA LNG plant.
One half of Mariscal Sucre gas reserves gas will be committed to the domestic market with the other half going to the liquefaction terminal, for export to "strategic" markets in Latin America the Figuera said.
" We will commit LNG to develop these Southern Cone markets - Argentina, Brazil, Chile - and the Caribbean. These markets will be within the supply formula of these two trains, and of course we will be targeting the premier markets with the extremely high prices in Europe and Asia as well," Figuera said.
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