MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
“Encouraging” news for Falklands oil prospects
THE state of the oil industry is picking up, and that's good news for the Falkland Islands. That's the message Director of Mineral Resources Phyl Rendell brought back to Stanley from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, AAPG conference in Barcelona, Spain that extended from September 21 to 24.
Mrs. Rendell said that the AAPG conference this year "referred specifically to the South Atlantic - albeit mainly Brazil and Angola, but it was very encouraging because of all the contacts with oil companies and following up of leads" that now must be done.
Looking into the future Mrs. Rendell said "the Falklands ideally would wish to see another seismic exploration phase, similar to that of 1998 but likely to be smaller, which would lead to either a discovery or more data and knowledge".
Mrs. Rendell added that the Barcelona conference drew a quality crowd that included senior exploration managers, "...we were hitting people who can make things happen."
All of the larger companies from Europe, the United States and Australia attended, "It was more buoyant than the last conference in Salt Lake City."
The Falklands delegation included Mrs Rendell and Dr. Phil Richards of BGS. Chairman of Desire Petroleum Colin Phipps also attended and the Falklands stand was supplemented by data from Global Petroleum and their representative Jim Webb.
"He was a very welcome addition as we are working in partnership with licensees. Visitors to the stand found it useful to be able to talk to government representatives as well as talk about the latest seismic data with the company."
Describing attitudes to Falklands in terms of oil, Mrs Rendell said, "Senior Executives are going back and revisiting all high risk areas to review potential for exploration. The attitude is very much 'don't rule anything out'.
"Even Shell visited us saying they had been told to look again - although I don't feel there is much chance of Shell coming back."
"It was all very encouraging and we now have lots of work to do following up leads and with visits to company headquarters (mainly to be undertaken by Phil Richards) if the company requires a full presentation."
Minerals Department Director recalled that the 1998 drilling season made a big difference to the economy of the Falkland Islands.
During the last exploration phase close to £1.3million was achieved in tax for the Falkland Islands Government and around £10 million flowed through the economy.
Source: "Penguin News".
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