THE Guyana Government, yesterday, finalised a four-year petroleum

prospecting licence agreement with the international oil and gas company, Repsol Exploration.
The arrangement will see the investor formally engaging in continuous exploration and production operations offshore Guyana, again.
Initially signed by President Donald Ramotar, as Minister of Petroleum, the deal authorises undertakings in the concession acreage called the ‘Kanuku Block’, located some 100 miles from the mouth of the Berbice River.
Signing at Office of the President, on behalf of Repsol, was the Director, Latin America North Exploration, Mr. Joseba Murillas, who said that the company is pleased to work with the Government of Guyana and assured of its commitment to the exploration of this country’s territorial waters.
He said Repsol is anxious to commence work under its obligations which include new 2D and 3D marine seismic acquisition, in the first phase of two and a half years, to be followed by an exploration Well in the second phase of the licence.
The licence will allow the company to operate approximately 6,525 square kilometres within the sedimentary basin offshore Guyana and there will be an option of renewal for two periods of up to three years each.
Repsol has been in this country for several years and has had an office here since 2010, so it will be able to initiate activities immediately.
It will also be partnering with Tullow Oil to start its operations under the agreement.
Murillas expressed the hope that, by year end, Repsol would have completed the seismic surveys and would be able to define a well location and initiate all the preparations needed to drill in 2015.
Speaking on behalf of the Guyana Government, Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Mr. Robert Persaud extended best wishes to Repsol in its venture and expressed satisfaction with having the company operating in Guyana, once again.

ITS DREAM
Pointing out that yesterday’s event followed months of negotiations and discussions, he said Guyana continues to be interested in Repsol’s presence which would allow the country to fulfil its dream of being an oil and gas producer.
He informed that other companies, such as Anadarko and CGX, are also doing work in this regard, for which the latter, recently, renewed a number of licences.
“There are activities taking place and I do hope that, with your presence, we can move our country forward to becoming one of the eventual oil and gas producers,” Persaud said.
He added that, given the reputation of Tullow, the Government is also happy to have them on board, once more, noting that both companies have good international reputations of operating within Guyana’s offshore in pursuit of oil exploration.
The minister pointed out that, while there was an issue, last year, with the Jaguar One well, there were some reassurances and assurances, despite failure to hit the target and, certainly, this would have motivated them to return to explore the Kanuku Block.
Persaud said he hopes that, eventually, a significant commercial discovery would be made and assured of the Government’s willingness to make all the arrangements possible so that results can be seen, even earlier, in order to have the resumption of exploration.
He welcomed some of the commitments made by Repsol, particularly capacity building in the area of human resources, since there would be need to build skills to prepare Guyana to manage an oil and gas sector.
“We have started that at the level of Cabinet. Currently, there is a team, in from the Commonwealth Secretariat, advising the Government on a number of policy initiatives and how we interact, how we prepare and update legislation in this regard,” Persaud disclosed.
Additionally, he said Repsol has its own university and has already had some preliminary discussions on how Guyanese can be trained at that institution in small numbers, eventually, increasing the number of persons.
Persaud said the operations of Repsol are also a very important aspect as part of the wider corporate social responsibility of ensuring employment.
“Guyanese are employed whenever we move to the stage of active exploration activities and we do encourage and insist that Guyanese are not only the cooks and cleaners, but also we become the technical persons, based on the skills available,” he stated.
Repsol was the operator for the consortium of companies which included Tullow Guyana B.V; YPF Guyana limited and CGX Resources Incorporated and has been present in Guyana’s corporate landscape since 1997, by virtue of Maxus Guyana Limited that was, at the time, formally awarded the Georgetown Block.
As a commemorative gift, Murillas presented Persaud with a sample of the oil which was discovered from the drilling of Jaguar number one last year.