Chile Forum

(Santiago, El Mercurio) Descubren nuevo pozo productor de gas natural en Magallanes Las pruebas iniciales de producción realizadas en la formación Springhill, determinadas a una profundidad aproximada de 2410 metros, permiten confirmar caudales de 190.000 metros cúbicos día de Gas Natural (6,7 millones de pies cúbicos diarios) y 21 metros cúbicos día de Condensado (132 barriles por día).

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¡PATAGONIA SIN HOYOS!!! ¡TODOS A LAS BARRICADAS! ¡ DEFENDAMOS LA NATURALEZA! ¡HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE, CAMARADAS! ¡ MARCHA 30 DE MAYO PLAZA ITALIA! ¡PATAGONIA LIBRE! ¡PATAGONIA SIN POZOS! ¡NO AL GAS NATURAL! ¡FUERA ENAP!

Further exploration found a another large gas reserve in Puerto Natales. The coordinates provided showed that it right below Px's house.

rasmataz wrote:Further exploration found a another large gas reserve in Puerto Natales. The coordinates provided showed that it right below Px's house.

That's what I call true natural gas.....after a good feast of porotos con riendas!!!

I suspect that one of these days they are going to find out, likely the week after the dam is completed, that Chile is sitting on the largest untapped oil reserve in the World.

I find it interesting that Chile is one of the few countries in the Americas without significant oil reserves of some sort. Count the number of South American countries with oil? How come Chile does not have some? Has anyone really bothered to really look?

admin wrote: Count the number of South American countries with oil? How come Chile does not have some? Has anyone really bothered to really look?

G-E-O-L-O-G-Y

Actually we do have some oil down here, but it's all east of the Andes.

Edit - some background from another site:

ENAP's oil production only meets 15% of Chile's needs and reserves are decreasing. Production, which began in 1945, is concentrated around the Strait of Magellan, both onshore and offshore; the crude petroleum is transported by sea to the refinery at Concón, north of Valparaíso. A second refinery was completed near Concepción in 1965 and, later, a third at Gregorio-Magallanes. As of 2002, production totaled 14,000 barrels per day, with proven reserves of 150 million barrels in 2001. The production of dry natural gas, as a byproduct of petroleum extraction, grew in the 1970s; production in 2000 was 1.1 billion cu m (40 billion cu ft), down from 2.1 billion cu m (75 billion cu ft) in 1997 production. In 2000, Chile imported 231,000 barrels per day of oil, primarily from Argentina, Ecuador, Nigeria, and Venezuela, and 4.1 billion cu m (144 billion cu ft) of natural gas, all from Argentina.

foto ENAP petroleum works in Tierra del Fuego



And petroleum operations at San Gregorio on the straits of Magellan

admin wrote:
I find it interesting that Chile is one of the few countries in the Americas without significant oil reserves of some sort. Count the number of South American countries with oil? How come Chile does not have some? Has anyone really bothered to really look?

Here is a sample map of the distro of oil and gas fields. In the Temuco basin (as an example, vs the Argentine Neuquen basin) you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of oil/gas fields west of the Andes. The tectonic development of the western side of the Andes in Chile has not been conducive to large petroleum deposits. Environmental groups in Chile have attempted to block further exploration for hydrocarbons.



Likewise down here in southern Patagonia we are on the eastern side of the "sunken Andes" but even so, most of the oil and gas fields in this region are on the Argentine side of the basin. It's possible that more gas and oil (and coal) fields may be discovered but there are some problems. The workers for the state petroleum agency (ENAP) have proven to be unreliable and have been fomenting sabotage against the gas delivery infrastructure, including the foreign-owned (Canadian) Methanex plant. Local and national enviro groups are agitating against hydrocarbon extraction while at the same time demanding natural gas supplies for residents of the XII Región with no increase in peso-based utility rates for ten years.

As a way of countering some of this resistance, the management of ENAP has been contracting with private exploration and development companies, resulting in considerable friction with both ENAP workers and the enviro groups. When the enviro groups discover that fracking (hydraulic fracturing) is being used by the foreign companies (e.g., the GeoPark consortium) we can expect much wider conflict. (GeoPark was founded by Texan James Park and is headquartered in Bs As. The presence of non-Chileans in the local petroleum industry has become another aspect of the growing local conflict). The hydraulic fracking issue has been associated with damage to aquifers and the mixing of groundwater with strata containing oil and gas.

Second image is distribution of gas and oil wells (blue dots) in the southern Patagonia/Tierra del Fuego region.

These guys seem to be having some success drilling in Chile, but also seem to be one of the only private companies exploring and drilling with production wells that I could find.

http://www.geo-park.com/ir/regulatory.asp

They are the only private company exploring. Their share price seems to be doing good, outside investors are buying in, and they seem to be hitting nearly every time they drill.
http://en.mercopress.com/2010/12/04/geo ... magallanes

Does not surprise me that the government company has not found anything.

admin wrote:They are the only private company exploring. Their share price seems to be doing good, outside investors are buying in, and they seem to be hitting nearly every time they drill.
http://en.mercopress.com/2010/12/04/geo ... magallanes

Does not surprise me that the government company has not found anything.

I had described Geopark in the map post above.

When the enviro groups discover that fracking (hydraulic fracturing) is being used by the foreign companies (e.g., the GeoPark consortium) we can expect much wider conflict. (GeoPark was founded by Texan James Park and is headquartered in Bs As. The presence of non-Chileans in the local petroleum industry has become another aspect of the growing local conflict).

When I refer to the GeoPark consortium I mean companies such as Pluspetrol Chile, Wintershall Chile Limitada, Methanex Chile, and GeoPark Magallanes Limitada which include foreign ownership and management, as well as other specialty contractors. The consortium sends all the oil it produces directly to ENAP for refining. All the gas it [GeoPark] produces goes directly to production of methanol at the [Canadian] Methanex facilities at Cabo Negro, which is a source of conflict with the people's committee [ACM] in Punta Arenas, because this gas is not available for residential use in the region. You may recall that the ACM was responsible for the regional paralysis in January this year which resulted in economic losses of over US$14 million and the cancellation of future tourism contracts. And we expect to see continued and deepening conflicts between the likes of the ACM and those agencies involved with hydrocarbon energy resources.

Actually ENAP, the state agency, had been the only exploration agency for many years, and they were responsible for the early production. They have been responsible for exploration, extraction, production, and refining since the early 1950s. All the natural gas extracted and distributed in Magallanes was the work of ENAP until recently. ENAP constructed about 3000 km of gas and oil distribution pipelines down here. Now GeoPark is getting contracts for building further gas pipelines.

In 2008 ENAP started working jointly with foreign petroleum companies for exploration and extraction, including Pan American Energy, Greymounth, and Apache. The Argentine company GeoPark is a more recent player.

We are getting used to seeing the GeoPark vehicles in a lot of places now in the Magallanes area.

Kind of off topic but sort of related to what Gloria said earlier. Turns out that Px may not be the only Kiwi full of hot air. FTR, I do not believe that Px is a source of gas.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/2 ... tml?fbwall

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A New Zealand truck driver said he blew up like a balloon when he fell onto the fitting of a compressed air hose that pierced his buttock and forced air into his body at 100 pounds a square inch.

Steven McCormack was standing on his truck's foot plate Saturday when he slipped and fell, breaking a compressed air hose off an air reservoir that powered the truck's brakes........

PenquistaDeCorazon wrote: ....breaking a compressed air hose off an air reservoir that powered the truck's brakes........

That's the breaks.