BHP makes big gas discovery

The Australian energy company, BHP has made a 3.5 trillion cubic feet discovery in the northern deepwater area of Trinidad and Tobago.
This announcement was made at an investor update on 11 November by BHP President Operations Petroleum, Geraldine Slattery.
Slattery said: “In the deepwater, in our Northern licenses, we have declared 3.5tcf gross discovery, with further potential upside. Whilst detailed development studies are just getting started, a hub appears best suited to this play.”
The Northern license area includes the Tuk-1, Bele-1, Boom-1, Hi-Hat-1 and Bongos-2 wells.
This is good news for the country which has suffered from natural gas shortages.
Slaterry added that BHP has operated in T&T for nearly 20 years in the shallow-water Angostura field. She noted: “Earlier this year we sanctioned the Ruby Brownfield project, which was underpinned by continued appraisal and seismic imaging in proximity to the original development.”
In T&T, Slattery noted that the context “assumes access to existing LNG infrastructure in T&T, which has capacity, whilst recognizing, there are multiple development concepts being considered at this phase in the project.”
She said that as the operator, with high equity interest, BHP also has the scope to optimize the development planning and the development concept. Slattery stated: “Subject to being competitive for capital, we see an FID (Final Investment Decision) from 2022.”
During the Q&A segment, Goldman Sachs employee, Paul Young questioned Slattery as to whether spare capacity will open at Atlantic LNG. He also asked if bhp has enough resources to move ahead with its plan or if the company’s plans are contingent on further exploration.