17 companies contracted to look for oil in Belize
Posted: 05/02/2010 - 10:42 AM
Author: Adele Ramos - adelescribe@gmail.com
Most of Belize’s 8,867 square miles of territory and much of the waters offshore have been parceled out in petroleum contracts (concessions) to 17 different companies with a range of foreign shareholders from as close as the USA and as far off as Taiwan.
Belize Natural Energy (BNE) has one of those 17 contracts, and it remains the only company producing and exporting oil from Belize, since it struck oil in mid-2005. BNE is owned primarily by Irish investors, with interests being held by at least one Belizean shareholder, Patricia Usher, the wife of former BNE director and founder, Mike Usher.
BNE partners with CHx of the USA. CHx is a company owned by Aspect Energy LLC, the company chaired by Alex Cranberg. Cranberg is the former spouse of BNE’s chairman, Susan Morrice.
Apart from having a 36% stake in BNE’s half-million acre concession area within the Belize and Cayo Districts, it also has interest in the Toledo block of US Capital, as well as the West Bay block in Orange Walk.
“Right now the only producer is BNE,” said Andre Cho, director of the Geology and Petroleum Department. “RSM [Production Corporation] drilled two wells in Gallon Jug [Orange Walk], but they were dry. Perenco [which has an adjacent block in Orange Walk] is preparing to start seismic in Orange Walk—250 kilometers of seismic.”
According to Cho, other companies are either reviewing old petroleum data or preparing to shoot seismic. The Chinese Petroleum Corporation, a company owned by the Government of Taiwan through its overseas arm OPIC Resource Corporation, is expected to begin offshore drilling work on the ground “in the next couple of years.”
There are no contracts given out for the Maya Mountains area, because it is not a sedimentary basin, Cho told us.
Princess Petroleum Limited, belonging to the owners of the Princess Hotel and Casino, has a contract to explore 1 million plus acres of Belize for oil, Cho informed. The license, he said, was given under the last administration for mostly offshore, but also some inland exploration.
“Right now they [Princess] are just reviewing old geologic and geo-physic data, but there is no physical work yet,” Cho added.
In his view, the biggest current development “would have to be the declaration of the Never Delay discover as commercial.”
It adds more production and more revenues, Cho expressed.
There were hopes that Gallon Jug (in the RSM block), Yalbac (in the West Bay block) and Calla Creek (in the BNE block), would have oil. However, none of the wells dug so far were deemed successful.
BNE is drilling another shallow core at Calla Creek, said Cho, because oil is seeping there. “They want to know if production can be done there,” Cho said.
As for natural gas, he told Amandala that so far, they have not found any.
In the south of Belize, in Toledo, US Capital has some more seismic planned. They have already shot 40 kilometers in the Sarstoon Temash National Park (STNP).
“They have not started drilling,” Cho said.
The Chinese Petroleum Corporation (OPIC) had visited Belize in 2009, around August/September, to collect data and take them back to Taiwan to review and reprocess.
The 17 companies with petroleum contracts are: BCH International Inc, BelGeo Ltd., Belize Natural Energy, Blue Creek Exploration Ltd., Island Oil Belize Ltd., Miles Tropical Energy Ltd., OPIC Resource Corporation, Perenco Limited, PetroBelize Ltd., Princess Petroleum Ltd., Providence Energy Belize Limited, RSM Production Corporation, SOL Oil Belize Ltd., Spartan Petroleum Corporation, US Capital Energy Belize Ltd., West Bay Belize Ltd., and ZMT International Inc.
Companies have up to 8 years to explore for oil, and 25 years to undertake production and pump oil commercially out of the ground. If no oil is found within the eight-year exploration phase, the contract “self-terminates,” meaning it is no longer in effect.
Cho also said that since December 2009, officers of his Department have powers of arrest for non-cooperating companies.
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