United Oil & Gas Plc said it completed all three stages of a seabed geochemical survey off the southern coast of Jamaica, a milestone the United Kingdom listed company hopes will attract a deep-pocketed drilling partner to one of the Caribbean’s most tantalising unexplored offshore blocks.
The study aims to improve the prospects of finding oil in commercial quantities offshore the island from one quarter to one third.
The company announced the successful conclusion of its Seabed Geochemical Exploration programme within the Walton Morant Licence, including the retrieval of seabed sediment from all 42 piston coring sites selected during Stage 3. The cores are being shipped to TDI Brooks laboratories in the United States, where geochemical analysis will test for the presence of thermally derived hydrocarbons. Initial results are expected within weeks.
“The recovery of seabed sediment cores at all 42 selected locations is a fantastic achievement,” said Brian Larkin, United’s chief executive. He added that the company would simultaneously press ahead with farm out talks, with the goal of advancing towards “a potentially transformational offshore exploration drilling phase for Jamaica”.
The three-stage programme began with a multibeam “echosounder” survey that gathered 1,189 line kilometres of high resolution seabed mapping data. Stage 2 deployed heat flow probes across both the Walton and Morant basins to inform geological modelling while Stage 3 used the integrated dataset to pinpoint coring locations clustered near high density prospects such as Colibri.
United first entered Jamaica in 2017 when it farmed into the Walton Morant Licence at a 20 per cent stake alongside UK-based Tullow Oil. It has since consolidated to 100 per cent ownership of the block, which spans 22,400 square kilometres and carries an independently audited estimate of at least 2.4 billion barrels of unrisked mean prospective resources, of substances that resemble oil. The surveys sought to identify whether the substances are oil rather than sludge.
The Jamaican Government extended the licence every two years since 2020 – committing United to a programme of technical studies before any well is drilled. Positive geochemical results from the current survey would directly bolster the company’s data room and strengthen its hand in negotiations with potential farm in partners, several of which are already under non-disclosure agreements. The survey aimed to derisk partnering with a company to drill a well, which can cost over US$30 million.
Industry observers have drawn comparisons between Walton Morant and ExxonMobil’s Stabroek Block in neighbouring Guyana, where more than 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil have been discovered since 2015.
business@gleanerjm.com
