Colombia flag: India's ONGC is set to start drilling off the country in 2010
Reliance set to spin off Colombia in 2010
India’s Reliance Industries is expected to drill its first well off Colombia in 2010 after the company finishes seismic sweeps over its blocks, the Colombia's national energy agency said.
“We are in continuous conversation with Reliance. At the moment, they are carrying out 3D seismic studies in the blocks and will start drilling in two years,” the director general of Colombia’s Agencia Nacional De Hidrocarburos (ANH), Armando Zamora, said.
Reliance has signed deals with ANH covering exploration and production in two offshore blocks, Borojo North and Borojo South, in the Pacific Ocean.
Reliance plans to invest $50 million in the two blocks over a six-year exploration period.
“Prospects of both blocks are very encouraging with mostly natural gas,” India’s Economic Times reported the ANH director saying in India. He is part of the visiting delegation headed by the Energy and Mines Minster, Hernan Martinez Torres.
Talking about the forthcoming licensing rounds, he said Colombia plans to offer 145 blocks for exploration and production in November.
Colombia has the fifth-largest oil reserves in South America, with about 1.5 billion barrels of crude reserves and 525,000 barrels of crude production a day.