There is little update on drilling by Maranco Energy Belize

Since announcing a promising oil discovery in June, there has been much talk about oil in the northwest corner of the Orange Walk District.  News of the encouraging show was also used by the prime minister as a carrot during negotiations with the unions over a much delayed salary adjustment.  But speculation of the favorable breakthrough and what it means for the country, if found in commercial quantity, has subsequently died down.  Maranco Energy Belize, the concession holder of that particular block where the South Canal Bank-One Exploration Well is located, has not thrown in the towel despite experiencing a few snags in the later phase of the operation.  According to Director of Geology and Petroleum, Andre Cho, information from the find is still being gathered and the company expects to proceed with its work in the near future.

Andre Cho, Director of Geology & Petroleum

“They have drilled one appraisal well and they two additional appraisal wells to be drilled. They recently concluded monitoring sorry of the pressure in the well; in the second well…the first appraisal well. With that they will analyze those results and move forward with drilling the second and the third appraisal well and test those and try and calculate how much oil is there and how much can be produced and therefore if it is commercial.”

Reporter

Andre Cho

“A couple of months ago, when it came on the news that there was a favorable oil find in that La Seca Area, several weeks later when we did an update, we were told that there were some technical issues with regards to either the silt or the sediment or something that was clogging the pipeline or whatever was being extracted. Can you provide some explanation or clarity on that?”

Andre Cho

“Well what they did is that they tested the formation hat has oil and it is a rock that we call dolomite and it is tight. The sporocity is fair, but the probability is very low so the oil cannot flow through the rock. So they ran some tests—some production tests on the formation to see what can be produced.”