GULP political leader Reynold Benjamin was out the country for the events of 1974 and 1978, but he had his fingers firmly on the national pulse. He is the lawyer who represented the Madonna Swan case. More recently he is the man who led a delegation on a walk to sensitize our nation on the importance of having the maritime boundaries with Venezuela settled in order to enjoy the US$200 Billion in oil and gas deposits beneath our sea bed.

Even if the above figures are somewhat inflated there is enough oil capacity to provide adequate remedies.

The maps attached shows the location of a recent Petro discovery northwest off Tobago that is no more than forty miles from our own exclusive zone

“We cannot continue to wait on others to give us loans and grants and fix our roads and build our bridges. There will never again be cheap food. We cannot continue to place our eggs in one tourism basket. There is a shortage of land for growing food in the world, yet our lands are covered with vine and we cannot see the Chinese looking at our lands with envy.”’

What our oil discoveries can do are so obvious: employment revenues to pay decent wages and to repay our international debts.

But to explore our oil and gas resources it is necessary to fix our boundaries with Venezuela.

The fortification of Bird Island just west of St. Lucia by Hugo Chaves years ago with the blessings of the United States has indicated Chavez claim to zone 200 miles of territorial sea.

In 1974, the year of independence the search for ‘Black Goal’ was already seven years old. In 1967, Sir Eric Gary, aware that Government needed a meaningful revenue base outside of revenue taxation, had surveys done on our sea beds.

The Surveys showed pockets of oil and gas, but the feasibility of exploration of those reserves was the question; most were in deep waters, expensive to recover based on the technology of the time.

But later surveys showed there were more attainable reserves at low cost nearby. Between 1979-1983 the People Revolutionary Government with World Bank help collected data to draft petroleum legislation and regulations and prepare guidelines for the sector – a proposed boundary with Venezuela was the PRG’s last serious efforts.

Benjamin notes “effectively we have lost 24 years.’

 

 

 

 

Petro-Canada completed testing operations on the Trinidad and Tobago deepwater Block 22 well Cassra-1 on January 9, 2008 using the Diamond Offshore Ocean Worker drilling unit.

Cassra-1 was drilled in 430 meters of water and reached a total depth of 1,712 meters below sea level. The well was targeted at the NW edge of a seismically defined amplitude anomaly, covering an area of 68km2. The well encountered the reservoir objective and established a gas water contact for the mapped seismic anomaly. A DST was performed over a 30ft interval and flowed gas at an equipment restricted rate of 23 million cubic feet per day.

This is the first well results and using local field analogue recovery factors, our seismic model indicates the discovery could contain in the range of 0.6 to 1.3 trillion cubic feet of recoverable contingent resources.  Petro-Canada will continue implementing the evaluation plan for Block 22, the key objective of which are to verify the resource base and establish economic viability.

This is the first well to be drilled on Block 22 as part of a six-month drilling campaign using the Ocean Worker. On completion of Cassra-1, the drilling unit will move 4.6 kilometers to the south to spud the Cassra-2 well which will, as part of its objective, appraise the Cassra-1 discovery.

Following completion of the Cassra-2 well, the drilling unit will drill two to three other separate prospects on Block 22 as part of an expected five-well drilling campaign in 2008 in Trinidad and Tobago.

The well was operated by Petro-Canada (90% WI) on behalf of partner Petrotrin (10% WI). Petro-Canada was awarded the Production Sharing Contract for Block 22 in July 2005 by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries.