Reports are that BPTT, said to be the largest gas producer in Trinidad and Tobago, will reduce its gas production by up to 300 million standard cubic feet per day in 2020 and 2021, constituting a 15 percent drop in production.
According to a report in the Trinidad Guardian, the drop in production conflicts with the mid-year budget that finance minister Colm Imbert presented during which he downplayed the significance of the decline.
“Given recent disappointing results on a couple of infill wells, we are now unlikely to have the 200-300 mmscf/d that we were expecting to supply into Train 1, especially in the 2020 to 2021 time frame. These volumes would have been supplied under a new, as yet unsigned, gas sales agreement between BPTT and Atlantic 1,” the Guardian quotes BPTT as saying.
According to the report, “Imbert told the Parliament that the drilling campaign had resulted in only one unproductive well and he found the concerns to be “alarmist.”
“[The] BP wells with less than satisfactory results are only two in number and are infill wells in existing gas fields. Unlike exploration wells, infill wells are normally brought into production almost immediately. I am advised that one of these infill wells will go into production shortly, although with lower volumes than anticipated, leaving just one unproductive well. All this drama over one unproductive well is totally unnecessary,” the Guardian quotes Imbert as saying.
The report said BPTT told Guardian Media that the two wells that failed were in its Cannonball and Cashima fields “and while the fields are still producing it has had to revise its forecast for gas.”
BPTT reportedly said: “The two wells concerned were in our Cannonball and Cashima fields. We will continue to produce gas from the existing wells in the Cannonball and Cashima fields, however, we have revised our production forecast for the 2020-2021 period in these two fields. We will review the results from these two wells and apply any learnings into future infill drilling programmes.”
BPTT had an average production in 2019 of 2.1 billion cubic feet per day. The company told Guardian Media, “There is no impact on forecast production from our other fields and there is no impact on our 2019-2020 exploration drilling programme or on our sanctioned new field developments, Angelin, Cassia Compression and Matapal. We will continue to bring on new wells in Angelin as planned this year and continue to target first gas from Cassia Compression in the second half of 2021 and Matapal in 2022. We will also step up our focus on well work and system optimisation to maximise base production from our existing fields.”
