BHP oil company has since abandoned its well after failing to find hydrocarbons

No oil was found off Trinidad’s east coast, as Australian oil company, BHP has confirmed that it’s recent search for oil ended in failure.

The Australian company is reporting that its deep water search off the coast of Trinidad ended in failure with the Broadside-1 well turning up dry. As a result, the company announced in its quarterly operational review that it is abandoning the well after its failure to encounter hydrocarbons.

There has been talk since October last year of the Broadside-1 well turning up dry but officials are only now confirming this information. In fact a report carried in the Business Guardian on October 29 last year stated that BHP’s deep-water well Broadside-1 had failed to find oil or gas and was “a dry hole”.

However, neither the Australian oil company nor the Government of Trinidad and Tobago were willing to come forward and confirm the information until now. In light of BHP’s disclosure of the oil exploration failure in its latest quarterly operational review, Trinidad and Tobago Energy Minister Franklin Khan is now admitting to the oil well failure.

Oil discovery a dismal failure

The Broadside-1 well had much hope for the twin-island republic’s expectation of a massive deep water oil discovery but this has now proven to have been a dismal failure. In its quarterly operational review, BHP stated: “In Trinidad and Tobago, the Broadside-1 exploration well in the Southern Licence reached the main reservoir on October 22, 2020 and did not encounter hydrocarbons.”

The company stated that the well was a dry hole and was plugged and abandoned on November 8, 2020.

“The results are under evaluation to determine next steps on the Southern Licences,” BHP stated.

Speaking to the media yesterday, Khan reported that, “the Broadside-1 well was drilled in the acreage off the South East Coast and that was drilled as an oil prospect and obviously it is now official that was basically a dry hole”.

He told the local media that BHP found reservoirs but did not find the charge, what they call the thermogenic charge that would produce the liquid hydrocarbons.

TT government heaps praises on BHP

The Trinidad and Tobago energy minister was quick to point out that this doesn’t in any way diminishes the potential of the North East acreage.  Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley last September praised BHP for its continued interest in the Caribbean territory.

At the time he made reference to the Australian oil company beginning drilling its Broadside-1 well, which was expected to test the oil play within BHP’s Southern Deep-water Blocks. These include the wells located at TTDAA 3, 5 and 6.

According to Rowley, “If the finds of the Broadside well are promising, it can inform the drilling of further exploration wells in nearby blocks”.

He contended that a commercial discovery in any of Broadside’s Miocene targets could de-risk the majority of the prospective resources identified by Netherland, Sewell and Associates in its audit of the country’s crude oil reserves and resources for year-end 2018.