Sally Radford, Lecturer, University of the West Indies, St.

Augustine, Thomas Radford,

Trinidad. Director, Bridgefield Consultants Limited.

"Deep Water Exploration Potential of Trinidad and Tobago"

Abstract: Trinidad and Tobago is a country which has taken part, over the years, in many of the major developments in oil and gas exploration and production since the first wells were drilled there in the nineteenth century and the expansion into deep water is no exception. Despite the fact that its industry is relatively small by international standards and its geology is complex, there has been continuous production from its fields for well over 100 years. The current trend to explore further offshore into deeper waters and exploit the less familiar geological provinces further down the continental slope is no exception. The recent completion of a world class LNG plant and the siting of several petrochemical facilities have provided a ready market for potential gas discoveries as well as oil. Its political, economic and industrial history has brought about an investment climate in which the available infrastructure is already tuned to the petroleum industry and the workforce, compared to the competition, relatively well educated in its ways. Recent drilling and geophysical studies in comparable areas on the opposite side of the Atlantic provided indications that he chances of major discoveries in the Trinidad and Tobago deeper offshore provinces are good. Detailed studies of the existing geophysical data, extrapolation of the onshore geology and the structures which support the developments in the shallower parts of the Atlantic off the coast of Trinidad confirm such indications. The USGS, in their review of Undiscovered Resources published in June 2000, looked at petroleum systems and basins around the world on a systematic basis and rated highly the Eastern Offshore Province of the East Venezuelan Basin, a large proportion of which is within the national waters of Trinidad and Tobago. The fiscal regime under which any discoveries, especially any major gas finds, would be developed and exploited is currently under review, a process which started last year and was announced in the annual Budget speech. Since then, there has been a change of government. These two factors would normally be considered, if taken at face value, as increasing the uncertainties about the economic regime within which any development would be undertaken. Added to the current uncertainties in prices and market volumes, they might have been a major disincentive to exploration; but the history of the evolution of this tax regime, and the general social stability and the professionalism of the country's civil service would indicate otherwise. The Prime Minister was himself trained as a Petroleum Geologist and both of the leading political parties in Trinidad have repeatedly made clear their understanding of the value of cooperation with the industry on which the country's continuing prosperity depends.

Trinidad has a long history of exploiting its petroleum resources, the Pitch Lake at La Brea was known and used over 270 years ago. Similarly, in the mid 19th. century, pitch and manjak were mined and mineral oil was extracted for exported to the United States and Europe competing with whale oil for lighting and even medicinal use. The first wells to be drilled for oil in 1866 were not a commercial success but the arrival in Trinidad of Randolph Rust, in 1881, signaled the start of the oil industry on the island. Production increased throughout the early 20th.Century, in line with activities in the USA and elsewhere in the world until World War II when the refinery at Pointe-a-Pierre was a critical source of 100 octane fuel for the fighters of Royal Air Force.

In the post war years production from the onshore fields rose and refinery throughputs increased to meet rising demand until the late 1960s when the growth of the relatively small offshore developments in the Gulf of Paria failed to compensate for the decline of the more mature and numerous onshore fields. Subsequently, the variation in energy prices and vagaries of world products markets controlled the levels of activity until the economics of offshore production allowed opening up of the East Coast Marine areas. Up to this time, other than for a relatively minor domestic power generation and fertilizer plant, gas was of minor commercial interest. Large quantities of associated gas were being flared in the oilfields for lack of any other use.

In the 1990s various new industries were developed to use the associated gas and the substantial new reserves which were being discovered offshore, especially in new geological provinces off Trinidad's North Coast, west of the sister island of Tobago. At this time, more gas was being discovered in large structures further to the West, off the North coast of Venezuela and a major LNG plant was being planned on that coast. For one reason or another that facility was never built but it rekindled interest in exports of LNG from the region. The Trinidad LNG project was initially designed to accommodate the lower levels of reserves, which had been proved up to that time, and also the expectation that the trends in world LNG markets would enable smaller tankers to trade economically in a way which was incompatible with the very large specialized LNG carriers then operating between Japan and Korea and the large liquefaction plants in the Far East. One company especially interested in just this type of trade was Cabot, who had markets served by their terminals on the East coast of the USA. They joined the project with Amoco, British Gas and the Natural Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago. The completion of the first train of the Atlantic LNG project, on time and within budget, late in April 1999, was a further sign of the maturity of Trinidad's industrial infrastructure as well as a credit to the engineers involved. Meanwhile, enough additional gas reserves had been proved to justify a second train which is to be completed later this year and a third train, which is progressing well, with a planned completion in mid - 2003. The capacity will then be 9.6 million Tonnes per year. In addition, the aggregate demand for gas will be further boosted by the building of two new methanol plants and expansion of the ammonia production capacity. A feasibility study has been completed for an ethane based petrochemical complex and there is also consideration being given for the establishment of other diversified industries using gas either as feedstock or as an energy source. Meanwhile, the various onshore fields, including some with a very long history of primary production, then pressure maintenance and, finally, tertiary recovery,

have tended to decline but still produce at an aggregate of nearly 24,000 BOPD. The principal operator is the state owned company Petrotrin, but there are others who have various leases and are employing a range of techniques to extend the life of their charges and to maximize the ultimate oil recovery. Offshore, the earliest fields, dating from the 1960s from the relatively shallow waters of the southern Gulf of Paria to the west of Trinidad, are still in production. However, because this area is limited by the median line between Trinidad and Venezuela, and because the southern half of the Gulf has been repeatedly studied an explored over the past 40 years the unlicensed parts of this area, like most of onshore Trinidad, have not recently been considered to have major potential for exploration. At this point it is wise to point out that the end of exploration drilling in Trinidad has been forecast, only to be proved wrong, so many times that even these areas could eventually have yet another renaissance thanks to market forces or, more likely, advances in technology. The geology is complex, with stacked sand/shale sequences multiple faulting the detailed origins of which are still a topic for debate amongst geophysicists and a range of source rocks and sealing mechanisms. As each new generation has taken over from its predecessors, it has contributed a new understanding of the tectonics or factors influencing sedimentation in the area, only to have that either displaced or refined a few years later by the next group of workers in the area. This is a natural progression but the nature of the Trinidad oil province is such that its effect has been more to open up new opportunities, than to be the cause of eliminating them. The existing East Coast oil and gas fields tend to be found on four very similar northeast-soutwest trending ridges to those governing the adjacent onshore fields. The delta of the modern Orinoco river feeds into the Atlantic Ocean just to the south of Trinidad with the Equitorial Current directing its sediment northwestwards both into the Gulf of Paria and along the East coast of Trinidad, in a more northery direction. A similar situation is believed to have existed

since Miocene times with frequent sea level variations in the Pliocene and Pleistocene. This resulted in a rapid clastic deposition on to under-compacted shales which combined with regional tectonic forces brought about the series of ridges mentioned above. There are various interpretaions as to how the ridges and their associated families of faults came about. The tectonic forces arose from the relative movements of the Atlantic plate westwards, the Carribean oceanic plate eastwards and the South American continental plate westwards. The offshore area closest to Trinidad and the southern third of the island falls within a province characterised by extensional tectonic forces. In this region the diapiric structures resulting from movement of the shales ffollowing the clastic loading, can be seen in the seismic record and are to be observed today in the form of mud volcanos onshore and significant mud flows offshore. The uneven stress is relieved by a series of secondary faults normal to the line of the ridge. This faulting provided a route for the movement of hydrocarbons as they progress to fill the reservoirs. Most of this province lies within the 200 metre water depth contour, south of the Darien ridge. Between 200m and 1600m water depth, the minibasin province characterised by the growth of shale diapirs around which interbasin fill and spill processes can occur. This province is also seen as a conduit for sand transport to the deeper Compressional province which extends to 3000 metres water depth, where strong oceanic processes may have reworked the debris into the well sorted, high quality reservoirs which may be required to make any developments into profitable ventures. The very large thicknesses of clastic, late Tertiary sediments, over 12 kilometres in places, provide an ample motivation for continued exploration interest.