Falklands : DEPARTMENT OF MINERAL RESOURCES SEPTEMBER ACTIVITIES
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 08.10.2011 (Article Archived on 22.10.2011)
At September’s meeting of the Mineral Resources Committee Mrs Phyll Rendell, the Director of Mineral Resources, Gave her monthly report. She began by outlining the progress with the Offshore Drilling Programme.
DEPARTMENT OF MINERAL RESOURCES SEPTEMBER ACTIVITIES
By J. Brock (FINN)
At September’s meeting of the Mineral Resources Committee Mrs Phyll Rendell, the Director of Mineral Resources, Gave her monthly report. She began by outlining the progress with the Offshore Drilling Programme.
Since the last report for the meeting held in August, Rockhopper Exploration has completed another well (14/10-7) on the Sea Lion field situated 4 km from the discovery well (14/10-2). On 14 September Rockhopper reported the results of the well in a press release. They confirm that they had encouraging results in the Sea Lion main fan sand complex. The company is now drilling well 14/10-8 that will continue to establish the extent of Sea Lion and will aim to drill through two additional potential reservoirs that have been identified on the company’s new 3D seismic data.
In addition the company released their capital markets presentation on 14 September where they expand on their conceptual development plans for a production phase that would use a leased Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel (FPSO) to produce hydrocarbons on the site of the Sea Lion field. Rockhopper comment that they aim to submit Development Plans to the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) in the first quarter of 2013. Rockhopper have embarked on a fund–raising exercise where they estimate that an investment of around $2 billion is needed to fund development of the field.
Mrs Rendell went on to report about Borders & Southern Petroleum’s Environmental Documentation.
Borders & Southern Petroleum have submitted an addendum to their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to FIG. Stakeholders have reviewed the document and comments have been received and, where appropriate, have been incorporated into a new version of the Addendum. Copies are available for anyone wanting to read it. A report prepared by the Environmental Planning Department will be discussed at this committee meeting.
Borders & Southern have also prepared an Oil Spill Contingency Plan addressing the worst-case, low probability events that could occur when drilling wells. The Plan has been reviewed, and amendments have been made by the authors where appropriate. The revised plan will be considered at this meeting before being forwarded to Executive Council.
Borders & Southern anticipate that the Leiv Eiriksson drilling rig will start its mobilisation to the Islands no earlier than mid November 2011 with an earliest spud date for the first of two wells being late January 2012.
Commenting on Falklands Oil & Gas Limited’s (FOGL’s) Environmental Impact Assessment, Mrs Rendell said that FOGL submitted their EIA to FIG on 19 September 2011 which covers the areas in the Southern Basins where the company intend to drill wells. The document has been made available for members of the public to read and written comments need to be sent to the Mineral Resources Department within 42 days of publication as set out in the Offshore Minerals Ordinance.
FOGL plans to drill two exploration wells using the Leiv Eiriksson when Borders & Southern have completed their exploration wells.
The legal issue of the Offshore Minerals Ordinance Amendment Bill was then discussed. The Department has been working with the Attorney General’s legal team to bring about a change to the section in the Offshore Minerals Ordinance addressing environmental matters. The changes set out the requirements for EIAs for offshore drilling activities and will amend the Schedule outlining what should be included in an EIA. Companies have already been voluntarily preparing EIAs in anticipation of drilling. The Bill is expected to be published for comment after the Executive Council meeting on 28 September and will be taken to the next meeting of the Legislative Assembly on 27 October 2011.
The Oil and Gas Development Group’s met and one of the actions from the Economic Development Strategy was to establish a working group to review policies and regulations to ensure that the Falkland Islands economy can gain maximum benefit from oil and gas exploration activities. The Oil and Gas Development Group, with representation from the private sector, FIG, FIDC and the oil industry, is meeting monthly in order to make recommendations where necessary to add value to current activities. A meeting at the Chamber of Commerce coordinated by Lewis Clifton and Karen Lee held on 12 August set about identifying what services could potentially be provided to the oil and gas sector and a further meeting is planned in November to coincide with a visit from Rockhopper Exploration. Some common themes are being identified as potential barriers to private sector involvement in oil industry activities and work is on-going to identify areas that need addressing.
A very constructive first meeting of the Offshore Hydrocarbons Environmental Forum was held on 27 September 2011. The meeting was arranged to coincide with a visit from FOGL in order that they could make a presentation to the Forum on their drilling plans. Rockhopper Exploration also spoke about their recent well test when hydrocarbons were flared and an independent observer monitored the flare from a support vessel. The Forum debated the need to coordinate available offshore data and to identify the data gaps.
FIG’s consultants, Dr Phil Richards and Tom Dodd from the British Geological Survey held meetings with FIG during the week of 4 September.
Tim Bushell, CEO of FOGL, Mike Thomas, Logistics Manager and an environmental consultant from RPS visited Stanley during the week of 26 September and held a public meeting on 28 September to present their EIA.
Argos Resource’ personnel will visit the Islands in the week of 11 October.
The Director and Director designate will attend the AAPG convention in Milan which starts on 23 October and will visit oil companies and FIG’s advisors while in Europe.
Stephen Luxton, who will take over as Director in early January, has taken up his appointment as Director Designate and Roddy Cordeiro is now in the post of Senior Projects Officer. Diana Aldridge has started working as the PA to the Director.
|
