A new oil producing fairway.
Corcel and Guatiquia currently represent Petrominerales’ most important producing area. They contribute approximately 75 percent of corporate production, even though we have explored only about 20 percent of the Corcel and Guatiquia land base.
Prior to making our first discovery in the area with our Corcel A1 well in July 2007, the nearest oil production was over 40 kilometres away. In three and a half years since the first discovery, we have discovered over 48 million barrels of proved plus probable oil reserves. We have drilled 28 wells and acquired over 550 km2 of 3D seismic. With over 50 drillable targets in our prospect inventory, and some 3D seismic interpretation still to come, we foresee additional opportunity for years to come.
In order to produce the maximum amount of oil in a cost effective manner, we have constructed a central processing facility next to our original Corcel A discovery. The facility can currently handle 180,000 barrels of fluid per day. We have made significant facilities investments to be a low cost operator and maximize the oil recovery from each discovery. In 2011, we will complete the tie-in of our Guatiquia production to the Corcel processing facility.
To date our key discoveries have been realized on our Corcel and Guatiquia blocks through the use of new processing technology and extensive 3D seismic. We still have over 80 percent of our Deep Llanos land base to explore.
We are targeting a number of different play-types and prospects in this fairway. We have discovered and commercially produced from eight different structures (A, Boa, C, D, E, Candelilla, Caruto, Yatay). This represents an exploration success rate of over seventy percent. These structures have ranged between two and 17 million barrels of total proved plus probable reserves.
Combining these well results with our operating philosophy of rapidly converting drilling success into production and cash flow, we have been able to quickly repay our investments and generate free cash flow for future exploration and growth.
