Uruguay has released a draft map of four ultra-deepwater and seven shallow-water blocks in the Punta del Este-Atlantic basin that will be on offer in the country’s third oil and gas bid round next year, officials said in Moscow this week, according to the oil and gas site Upstream.
French oil giant Total will be drilling its first well in Uruguay's continental shelf in October 2015, announced the president of the country's oil and gas government owned company ANCAP. Jose Coya also revealed that the company he leads is working on the third Uruguay Round which will implement in the last quarter of next year.
Oil exploration in Uruguay picked up strongly with the arrival of Anglo-Dutch Shell which took over Brazil's Petrobras participation in two offshore blocs according to the country's oil company Ancap Exploration and Production manager Hector de Santa Ana.
France's Total will lead a 1.2 billion dollars project to produce natural gas off the coast of Tierra del Fuego in the extreme south Argentina. In partnership with Wintershall AG and Pan American Energy LLC, they will drill as deep as 5.5 kilometers in the Vega Pleyade field, according to Javier Rielo who heads the project.
Brazil sold production rights to develop the giant offshore Libra oil area to a consortium led by Brazilian state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA in an auction with a single bid on Monday. The auction in Rio do Janeiro took place amid strict security measures with hundreds of police forces clashing with protestors.
French energy giant Total signed on Tuesday a deal with Uruguay’s oil company Ancap to search for oil in the northern counties of Artigas and Salto in an area of 6.200 square kilometres.
The Uruguayan government announced the discovery of free hydrocarbons liquids in core samples next to source rocks in the northern county of Salto at a depth of 450 metres, which seems to be similar to another discovery two years ago.
The French oil and gas company Total confirmed that at the beginning of 2015 it will spud its first exploratory well in deep waters of the Uruguayan continental shelf, according to Juan Gomez, one of directors from the country’s fuel company Ancap.
BP and Total, Europe’s biggest oil companies after Shell, won exploration rights in the Amazon basin as Brazil’s first oil auction in five years attracts a record level of bids. Total, based in Paris, gained exploration access to operate five blocks at the Foz do Amazonas basin in northern Brazil together with partners BP and Petrobras, the oil regulator said on Tuesday.
France’s Total has been awarded an exploration licence for block 14 offshore Uruguay, following a second bid round staged by state-owned company ANCAP. Confirmation of the award is subject to further approval by Uruguayan authorities.