Two bits of real good news in one week are almost too much to bear! Once again the “world running out of fossil fuels’ doomsters have got it spectacularly wrong. And both of these vast finds are by British companies.
So just for once - Rejoice!
Christina
THE TIMES
9.9.09
BG oil discovery will 'dwarf' BP's giant find
Elizabeth Judge
Shares in BG Group soared 2 per cent today after the company announced that its Guara discovery in Brazil contained up to 2 billion barrels of oil.
The group, the UK's third biggest oil and gas producer after BP and Shell, said it could extract between 1.1 to 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent from the Guara discovery. The find, it said, would dwarf the "giant" discovery announced by BP last week in Mexico.
Though the BP site is forecast to hold 3 billion barrels of oil, not all of it is expected to be extractable.
BG's announcement sent the group's shares surging 20p, or 1.9 per cent, to 1,075p.
BG announced in June 2008 that it and its consortium partners, Petroleo Brasieiro (Petrobas) and Repsol YPF had struck oil at a test well in block BM-S-9 of the Santos Basin, off Brazil, but no details were provided of the potential output.
BG holds a 30 per cent stake in the discovery while Petrobas has 45 per cent and Repsol 25 per cent. The group aims to start production in 2012.
Frank Chapman, chief executive of BG, said: "The well test results on Guara were excellent and underscore again the outstanding potential in BG Group's extensive position in the world-class Santos Basin."
He said the Santos Basin will "make a very material contribution to the production and cash flow of BG Group for many years to come".
BP, Europe's second-biggest oil group, announced last week that it had made a "giant" oil discovery at its Tiber Prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
The BP well is located in Keathley Canyon block 102, about 250 miles south east of Houston and is in 4,132 feet (1,259 metres) of water.
It described the well as "one of the deepest ... ever drilled by the oil and gas industry."
The Santos Basin find could provide a welcome boost for BG which, in July, cut its production targets in response to falling demand for fuel.
A global glut of liquefied natural gas and a slump in demand forced the group to push back its output target of 680,000 barrels of oil and gas per day by three months to March 31, 2010.
Recession sent the US gas price tumbling by two thirds year-on-year and the oil price by half during the second quarter of 2009 leading to a reduction in income for BG that overshadowed a 7 per cent boost in the company's oil and gas production in the period.
BG's earnings fell by almost a third to £513 million in the three months to June 30.
Analysts had speculated that the group's long run of production growth might become derailed by the recession
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