Maranco Petroleum show to be revealed

Joy Grant

According to the newspaper El Financiero, embassies of Belize and Guatemala have allegedly reported that U.S. experts have been exploring for oil in regions bordering Mexico since 2012.  The report alleges that the governments of Mexico, Belize and Guatemala began formal negotiations for the exploration and exploitation of oil strata in common border areas. But it seems that information appears to be inaccurate. The Embassy of Belize in Mexico says it has no knowledge of any agreements and the Minister of Energy Joy Grant flatly denied the report.  Grant and her C.E.O., Colin Young, however, spoke about Maranco Energy Belize Limited’s oil show in the Laguna Seca of Orange Walk on April second. At the time, the Ministry described it as an encouraging oil find and there is a lot at stake in this particular company because public officers and teachers have been promised salary increases depending on what Maranco reveals by the end of the week. 

Via Phone: Joy Grant, Minister of Energy [Courtesy: Krem News]

“I do not think Maranco is close enough for it to be feature unless it’s a huge find. At this point, we don’t have any indication that it is. However in the wider context, yes, we do know that where the borders intersect, for a long time, this may be a promising area for oil. We have done research and we know in many other countries that there is a well that goes over the border. And so what we will do is have a joint agreement with one or both of these countries.”

Reporter

“You had said previously that no such agreement is being considered at this time?”

Via Phone: Joy Grant

“Absolutely not. No.”

Colin Young

Via Phone: Colin Young, C.E.O., Ministry of Energy

Maranco was experiencing some technical difficulties; they needed a couple of equipment that were not available in Belize. They had to source that from the U.S. and the shipping and clearing customs and all of those things; some logistical issues. And they just managed to solve those technical delays over the weekend. So they are expected to start the production tests that will inform them and the government to declare whether or not this find, this show is a commercial find. So we should have some information by later this week whether or not Maranco did actually find a commercial field. And particularly because the issue was when they put down some acid to essentially stimulate the flow of the oil, when they were doing the first swab test, it turns out that that reacted with the oil and caused it to tar up. So that was one of the technical issues; they needed to send it to Panama to get tested to see which chemical would be best suitable for that quality of oil and they have done that. And I’ve said they have been able to solve those issues and starting tomorrow they should be conducting their first pumping of oil to see whether or not they could assess the commercial potential of the well. It’s a very low API. I think it is around the range of fifteen to eighteen API. To put that into perspective, it’s heavy crude. BNE oil is forty to forty-two, so it is a lot lighter. The difference of course is that the heavy oil is harder to extract; it doesn’t flow nearly as well, when the light sweet crude flows very easily. So extraction would be not only more expensive, but a little more technologically complex.”