Cairn considering next step in Sri Lanka oil exploration

Cairn considering next step in Sri Lanka oil exploration
June 25, 2013, 7:49 pm

Releasing its latest annual yesterday Cairn India said it was considering options to appraise, develop and monetize two successful hydrocarbon deposits on Sri Lanka’s side of the Mannar Basin.

Cairn Lanka (Private) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of CIG Mauritius Private Limited under Cairn India, has played a leading role in establishing the hydrocarbon resources of Sri Lanka. Following the success of Phase-I exploration resulting in two gas discoveries — CLPL-Dorado-91H/1z and CLPL-Barracuda-1G/1— Cairn completed drilling of a fourth exploration well as part of the Phase-II exploration programme, the company told shareholders in its 2012/13 annual report.

"The well encountered high quality reservoir sands, which were water bearing. Consequently the well was plugged and abandoned, and the rig demobilised. Cairn is considering options to appraise, develop and monetise the two discoveries," it said.

Earlier this year the Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat opened the country’s second round of bidding for petroleum exploration licenses for 13 blocks located in Sri Lanka’s side of the Mannar Basin and Cauvery basins with roadshows in Houston, London and Singapore. Several other blocks in the east and south waters of the country are on offer for joint studies as well.

Some of the world’s top oil exploration companies have already shown interest in Sri Lanka, especially after two encouraging discoveries by Cairn in the Mannar Basin. Total and Exxon Mobil have recently purchased Sri Lanka’s seismic data set, and ENI, BP, OVL, PVEP, and several other international majors are in discussion with the Government on potential future operations in Sri Lanka.

The final deadline for bids is September 30, 2013. Evaluation of these bids commences on October and the PRDS hopes to notify the winners then. Negotiations for the Petroleum Resources Agreements would commence thereafter in November, and the PRDS hopes to sign agreements by the first quarter of 2014.

The PRDS said Cairn’s fourth exploratory well was compromised after the drill ship temporarily lost its bearings.


http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=82177

Can someone explain what this is ?

is this the first time they say this is worth something and commercially viable ?

http://www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachHis/Cairn_India_Ltd_160513.pdf

mmboe definition

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/mmboe-.html

VISA wrote:Can someone explain what this is ?

is this the first time they say this is worth something and commercially viable ?

http://www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachHis/Cairn_India_Ltd_160513.pdf

mmboe definition

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/mmboe-.html

They are saying that there is probably 56 million barrels of oil equivalent in the block awarded to them. If they get all of it out at current prices they can sell a barrel at 85+ USD but it might cost 75+ USD to extract it out so those are thin margins, and if those 56 million is made up of gas rather than oil than it is even more risky to try to extract.
Looks like they will do a big analysis before deciding to do anything. It seems that oil prices going down is good for Sri-Lanka but it is not good for Cairn and offshore reserves.

Jiggysaurus wrote:

VISA wrote:Can someone explain what this is ?

is this the first time they say this is worth something and commercially viable ?

http://www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachHis/Cairn_India_Ltd_160513.pdf

mmboe definition

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/mmboe-.html

They are saying that there is probably 56 million barrels of oil equivalent in the block awarded to them. If they get all of it out at current prices they can sell a barrel at 85+ USD but it might cost 75+ USD to extract it out so those are thin margins, and if those 56 million is made up of gas rather than oil than it is even more risky to try to extract.
Looks like they will do a big analysis before deciding to do anything. It seems that oil prices going down is good for Sri-Lanka but it is not good for Cairn and offshore reserves.

Jiggy don't lie...about oil cost... in 2011 cairn spent over Sri Lankan Rs.10 billion for oil drilling.I have the entire accounts if you want.even in the world original cost for extracting an oil barrel is about less than US $ 5..Cairn India's daily production is around 175,000 to 200,000 barrels per day and company's daily income id est cash flow is about US $ 15.937 million at US $ 85 per barrel...According to Cairn India Financials for them cost per barrel even with employee salaries and administrative cost is about US $ 2.50-3. They have enough money to spend in Sri Lanka and in 2011 for the first phase's three wells they spent over US $ 150 million to Sri Lankan waters and staff. The problem is they don't have enough technology to drill beyond 3-4 km meters from sea bed. In Mannar basin Sea Bed is about 1.5-2 km and from sea bed's rock cairn had to drill another 4km to get at least Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) line spreading column with a height of 25 meters.That was not enough for production.But it was required to drill more than 5 km from sea bed rock in order to recover crude oil.So that involved a lot of cost for that financial year only for Sri Lanka but then they did another visualization to find where exactly to drill..Then they decided to drill in 2013 but by law according to Petroleum Resources agreement Cairn officially needs to inform Sri Lanka's first citizen about any oil findings before hand...(you can find it in PRDS website...downlaod and read)

First well story - Cairn Lanka (Pvt) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cairn India Limited, has notified
the appropriate authorities in the Government of Sri Lanka of a Gas Discovery in the CLPLDorado-91H/1z well, drilled in a water depth of 1354m, located in the block SL 2007-01-001, Mannar Basin, Sri Lanka. Cairn Lanka (Pvt) Limited is the Operator and has a 100% participating interest in the block.
A gross 25m hydrocarbon column in a sandstone between the depths of 3043.8-3068.7m MD has been interpreted from log and MDT data to be predominantly gas bearing with some additional liquid hydrocarbon potential. Further drilling will be required to establish the commerciality of the discovery.

However Cairn Lanka (Private) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cairn India Limited, has notified the appropriate authorities in the Government of Sri Lanka of a Gas Discovery in the CLPL-Barracuda-1G/1 well; the second well, located in the block SL 2007-01-001, in Mannar Basin.
That time it was informed that the second well was drilled to a total depth of 4741metres(m) in water depth of 1509m and encountered 24m of hydrocarbon bearing sandstone in three zones between the depths of 4067m and 4206m.

"The reservoirs are predominantly gas bearing with some additional liquid hydrocarbon potential" Cairn notified. Meanwhile later Cairn said that it will evaluate the well results and work with appropriate authorities to determine the commercial potential of its both discoveries in its first well and third well.

The CLPL-Barracuda-1G/1 well is the second successive discovery, located 38 kilometres (km) west of the CLPL-Dorado-91H/1z discovery well and approximately 68 km from the Sri Lanka coastline.
However in November 2011 Cairn said that an update on the well results will be provided after the end of the programme, which is expected to be complete by early next year.

However while Cairn spent more than 2011's well for 2013's only well including the drill ship that was paid nearly over 150,000 US dollars per day for 40 days of campaign...Government of Sri Lanka was also trying to market 13 blocks to worldwide at the same time.

Insiders say India wants and keen in aquiring the oil assets of Sri Lanka and do not want any other nation to come and drill in Sri Lanka...so in 2013 while government of Sri Lanka was scouting for new investors cairn india realized if they release anything about their 2013 well many investors will come in thus they said Cairn’s fourth exploratory well was compromised after the drill ship temporarily lost its bearings.

But inside Cairn India officials say well had to be closed immediately and the well was sealed as they found something but didnt want to publicise.That is why they scheduled their next phase quickly to August-September 2013...For Cairn India August is said to be a lucky month.

On the other hand Russia's Gazprom which has drilled world's most onshore deep well as deep as 12 km well - is supposed to be most technologically advanced oil company in the world for onshore drilling and for even offshore drilling with more money in pockets.

Cairn india actually slected 'Seven Seas' drillship of Transocean of Singapore that have over 50 drillships iin the world which is also the company that has drilled the deepest offshore oil well as far as 10 km in the world.

Oil drilling happens much more different. Usually there are Oil companies that explore but they give the contract for some seismic data observing sattelite companies obtain visualization and then give drilling contract to companies like Weatherford and obtain helicopters from Sri Lankan Airforce or Helicopters renting company to go to ships for immediate safety issues. And then buy the drill ship from a Japanese company or a singapore company or etc etc...and obtain logistics services from companies like Mclarens ships and Hayleys Advantis and chemicals from companies like CIC...It is a big operation that involves Navy,24/7-coast guard security,Army,Police and even Airforce and civilians...government organizations and many more.In Sri Lanka -Air Force earned over Rs.100 million in 2011 for 4 months by renting Bell helicopters to Cairn Lanka and Taj Samudra Hotel eaned over 23-28 million rupees for providing accomodation for 1200 indian staff and imigration department earned big money issuing visa's for them and even got free money from Cairn India to immigration department of Sri Lanka's events...Not only that the helicopter owning compan of Airforce also earned big money...apart from Rs.100 million profit to Airforce.Cinnamon Grand and Cinnamon Lakeside also earned about Rs.5-10 million by provinding superior accomodation for Cairn India's senior management and directors and when Cinnamon Lakeside was luanching their floating restaurant in 2011 December 19th Rahul Dhir of Cairn India a former deal maker from Merrill Lynch who actually persuaded Bill Gammell of Cairn UK - (Dhir was first CEO of Cairn India who ran operations for over several years but quit after Vedanta led Anil Agarwal bought Cairn India forming India's largest natural resources company - )to pioneer Cairn India - Dhir was in Colombo secretly with a few directors...

Oil industry in simple terms could be defined as bigger than Gem Industry...When you search for Gems you do not know..you go from thattuwa to thattuwa...i thattuwa equals 5 feet in average...usually they say 3/4th of Sri Lankan Land (75%) has gems but not possible to dig all. Finding a most expensive gem is also not possible immediately you have to pay for your partners,gem license,land owner...etc. etc...Oil industry is much more bigger than that you have many partners in your business and it is the most lucrative business in the world that is why even america is fighting against Libya,Syria,Iran...not because of Nuclear weapons but because of Oil,Gas,Natural Gas,Shale Oil....etc etc...

Let's hope we will find a lot of oil in the sea and our economy booms and our stock market ASP Index goes to 50000 level

For anybody interested here is the cost of oil extraction in 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/07/28/oil-cost-factbox-idUSLS12407420090728
Converting gas to liquids can cost from 38-113 USD while offshore oil can cost around 50 in the North Sea.
If as some say Sri Lankan offshore oil/gas can be extracted for less than USD 5 (around 650 rupees) than our fisherman should stop fishing and start pulling oil out of the sea. After all only 650 sri Lankan rupees per barrel of oil and can be sold for 10,000.
But i'm totally in agreement about the potential and the possible benefits.

Jiggysaurus wrote:
They are saying that there is probably 56 million barrels of oil equivalent in the block awarded to them. If they get all of it out at current prices they can sell a barrel at 85+ USD but it might cost 75+ USD to extract it out so those are thin margins, and if those 56 million is made up of gas rather than oil than it is even more risky to try to extract.

56 million barrels.
Aiyoo is that all
Extracting such a small deposit could be just wasting time.

UKboy wrote:

Jiggysaurus wrote:
They are saying that there is probably 56 million barrels of oil equivalent in the block awarded to them. If they get all of it out at current prices they can sell a barrel at 85+ USD but it might cost 75+ USD to extract it out so those are thin margins, and if those 56 million is made up of gas rather than oil than it is even more risky to try to extract.

56 million barrels.
Aiyoo is that all
Extracting such a small deposit could be just wasting time.

By 2011, Sri Lanka has consumed 97000 barrels per day. If you take it as 100000 you need 36500000 barrels per year.

56,000,000/36500 = 1.5 years

So we have deposit for less than 1.5 years consumption

yes, in 1 of 18 oil blocks of sri lanka. not that bad. if other block also have this ratio.

Sri Lanka swimming in gas & oil – experts
* Lankan experts in global industry set up home company
* Encouraging seismic data, Cairn’s success and PRDS professionalism and integrity key motivational factors
July 8, 2013, 8:24 pm

article_image

Top Sri Lankan professionals in the global hydro-carbon industry with over 100 years of collective experience yesterday (08) launched the country’s first oil and gas exploration and production company, Ceylan Energy, with the intention of co-venturing with multinational oil companies bidding for an exploration licence.

The Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat PRDS earlier this year opened the country’s second round of bidding for petroleum exploration licenses for 13 blocks located in Sri Lanka’s side of the Mannar and Cauvery basins with several other blocks in the east and south waters of the country also on offer for joint studies with a view to further assessing their hydrocarbon potential. The closing date for bids is November 30, 2013.

Ceylan Energy, Technical Authority-Subsea, Cecil Goonetilleke told journalists yesterday that seismic data provided concrete evidence of significant hydro-carbon deposits under the seabed in Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.

"India’s largest commercially viable hydro-carbon find was on its side of the Cauvery basin. The same geographical formation extends to Sri Lanka’s side of the basin and right down through the Mannar Basin where Cairn made two successful gas discoveries," Goonetilleke said.

A chartered engineer, Goonetilleke counts 34 years experience in mechanical design, project engineering, and project management, of which 25 years has been gained in the oil and gas industry. He has specialist experience in subsea and platform wellheads, Xmas trees, and systems and has worked with Woodside, Statoil, Conoco Phillips, Norsk Hydro, Hess, Marathon, Lundin, Murphy, and BP.

He said the latest seismic data and Cairn’s success were motivational factors for forming the company.

This did not mean the country would hit oil overnight, it takes considerable time, energy and money, lots of money.

Ceylan Energy Chairman Harry Kulasinghe said, "The country is swimming in oil and gas! The seismic information we have seen is very encouraging and we are confident that there are significant hydro-carbon deposits".

Kulasinghe has worked in the oil and gas industry for over 30 years, working in many regions of world, and has held several senior positions including sales director of KBR Production Services (now PSN) and overseas director for APG Salamis (now part of Petrofac). He is currently vice president – business development for Aker Subsea Limited in the UK and a non-executive director of Hayleys Energy Services Lanka (Pvt) Limited in Sri Lanka.

"We have accumulated some fund and there is a Middle Eastern partner that has committed to provide financing as well," Kulasinghe said not wanting to elaborate.

"We cannot engage in exploration and production on our own because the cost is beyond us, but we do have funds amounting to millions of dollars and this is not all. We are offering our expertise and local knowledge," he said.

He said having encouraging seismic data was not enough, "We need to have effective regulation and controls in place otherwise the country would not be in a position to reap the maximum benefit".

"At the start we were sceptical," Kulasinghe said when asked why the company was formed in 2008 when the first oil exploratory license was issued to Cairn India. "The PRDS conducts itself with professionalism and integrity and this was a key factor in all of us deciding to set up a company here in Sri Lanka".

"I am emotional and ambitious. It has always been my dream to set up a Sri Lankan oil and gas exploration and production company," said Kulasinghe, the son of engineering and industry pioneer Deshabandu Dr. ANS Kulasinghe.

The company is also a sponsor of the ‘Sri Lanka Upstream Conference 2013’ to be held at the Mount Lavinia Hotel this week.

Multinational oil and service companies Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Total, ENI, ONGC, Reliance, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Weatherford, Paradigm, Essar, CGG, Western Geco Arkex and others will be sending their top decision makers to the conference.

Key members of the Ceylan Energy Team:

Surath Ovitigama: A mechanical and technical safety engineer with ten years experience in the offshore oil & gas industry, he joined AMEC in Aberdeen (UK) as a graduate engineer and gained monitored professional development in a broad range of roles including mechanical engineering, facilities engineering and project management. Having reached senior engineer level he left AMEC to pursue further studies in safety and reliability engineering. Most recently he has worked within Premier Oil’s global engineering team providing technical assurance on assets in the UK and south-east Asia. Surath is also a Director of HES Global Services Limited (UK) with a remit to develop a workflow between the UK oil industry and Sri Lankan service providers.

Ratnam Sathananthan: With over 35 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, particularly in oil and gas field development, in normal, deep & ultra deep water environment, his special interests include the thermal and hydraulic management of multiphase transportation systems, long distance deepwater subsea tiebacks, subsea processing and cold flow, and the economic development of marginal fields. With over 20 years of management experience in the field development of both topside and subsea systems his clients include Shell, BP, Total, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Statoil, Centrica, Nexen, Taqa, Adnoc, Pertonas and Lundin. In addition to a degree in chemical engineering, Ratnam has extensive field experience in process system design and operation. He has designed onshore and offshore facilities, with many successful major subsea developments to his credit.

Diwin Amarasinghe: He works as a consultant petroleum exploration geophysicist in the oil and gas industry specialising in seismic data processing, subsurface imaging and geophysical interpretation. He has over thirty five years of hands-on experience in the exploration industry, including eight years of innovative problem solving as a Staff Geophysical Specialist in the Exploration Division of Saudi Aramco head office in Dhahran, using the latest technology in the industry. Twenty eight years prior to this he was employed as a senior geophysicist with major exploration contractors, including CGG, WesternGeco-Schlumberger, Paradigm and GSI during which time his clients included the internationals; BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, Elf, Statoil, Norsk Hydro, Repsol, Eni-Agip, BG Group, Maersk, Anadarko, Hess, Marathon and the National oil companies ADNOC, NNPC, NIOC, ONGC, Petrobras, Saudi Aramco, Sonatrach and Sirte Oil.

Upul Kulasinghe: Counting more than 40 years of experience, a qualified Mechanical Engineer who started his career in Applied Research prior to moving into the offshore industry as a Subsea Engineer and then a Field Engineer with Shell International. After spending some time in major business opportunity development, returned to the offshore oil and gas industry as a project manager specialising in project start-up and situation retrieval. At present consulting to an upstream oil and gas company on rationalising and focusing their computerised maintenance management system. Also is a skilled teambuilder and facilitator, having been trained in these activities by Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Halliburton. Residential work experience covers Europe, North America, South East Asia, South Asia and Australasia.

Sas Mahadeva: He is a fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants in the UK. In 1989, Sas was one of the founder directors of a real estate based asset management company in London and latterly Zurich. He specialised in acquisition and development of UK commercial real estate investments, funding structures, tax planning and investment consultancy. He is now a shareholder/director of London based real estate asset management business, Stockwood Capital and also runs his own advisory business, assisting institutional and private investors with investment opportunities in real estate, infrastructure and oil and gas sectors. He has a number of business interests and is extremely well connected in the private equity sector. Sas was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in the UK.

SL is swimming in iron ore ... the purity is better than the Kimberly region in South Africa and Western Australia.

And high grade Thorium in Benthota, High grade Ilmenite,Phosphate , Graphite, Blue Sapphires. A gene pool of immense value at Sinharaja, top of the line Pineapples and Cashew nuts and so it goes..... this is just to annoy the long term Bears:) 

Wow we have everything….!!!

But in real terms we have only mineral sands and a Phosphate deposit that won’t dissolve in water.

I really hope im wrong...

Business Basil, would love to hear about any updates if there are.

Total Nears Sri Lanka Study Contract for Deepwater Oilfields
By Rakteem Katakey & Anusha Ondaatjie - Jul 24, 2013 10:24 AM GMT+0530

Total SA (FP), Europe’s third-largest oil company, may win a contract from the Sri Lankan government in a month to study the prospect of oil and natural gas deposits deep off the island’s fabled white-sand beaches.

Eni SpA (ENI) of Italy has also expressed strong interest in the blocks located in waters more than two miles deep, said Saliya Wickramasuriya, director general at the Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat, which will give the contracts. Talks are on with Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC), which have yet to evince interest, he said.

“We have six very large blocks, with very sparse data, that we’re offering on a joint-study basis,” Wickramasuriya said in a phone interview from Colombo. “Apart from the hydrocarbon potential, which is the ultimate objective, it’s also a mechanism for Sri Lankan companies to gain experience.”

Sri Lanka, ravaged by three decades of civil war that ended in 2009, is seeking international help to discover its own wells and shrink the $6 billion it spends annually to import all its fuel needs. Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and Exxon were among companies that attended a conference in Colombo this month as the government started its second and biggest oil auction, offering 13 blocks off the northern and western coasts, besides those for joint studies.

“With Sri Lanka on a growth bias, an oil find will really give an additional boost to the economic expansion story,” Bimanee Meepagala, a Colombo-based analyst at the country’s largest private fund NDB Aviva Wealth Management Ltd., said July 23. “Commercial viability will also help stabilize Sri Lanka’s economic fundamentals.”
Deal Option

The winners of the study contracts will have two years to collect data and an option to negotiate a deal with the government for the blocks, Wickramasuriya said. Should a deal fail to be worked out, the government may auction the blocks at the end of the third year, he said.

Total spokesman Vincent Granier declined to comment. An Eni spokesman also didn’t comment, asking not to be identified because of company policy. ONGC Chairman Sudhir Vasudeva and Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers also declined to comment.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government, which pledged to spend $1 billion annually for at least three years from 2010 on infrastructure, is unlikely to give the contracts for the study blocks to a single company, Wickramasuriya said. The government also reserves the right to nominate a Sri Lankan company as a partner in the blocks, he said.
Cairn Discovery

Cairn India Ltd. (CAIR) established the presence of gas deposits in Sri Lankan waters last year. The company, which is producing oil at India’s largest onshore block, discovered gas in an offshore area in Sri Lanka’s Mannar basin, estimated by the government to hold 1 billion barrels of oil. That’s equal to about 18 percent of India’s proved oil reserves, according to BP data.

Cairn India is conducting further exploration and analysis on the discoveries, Asset Manager Nicholas Whitely said at the conference in Colombo on July 11. The 13 blocks being auctioned are located in the Cauvery and Mannar basins. The Cauvery basin is a geological extension of an area in India off the coast of Tamil Nadu, where Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) announced a gas discovery in July 2007 followed by a second find four years later.

Spending to extract the gas and pump it to factories including power stations on land would require as much as $2 billion over the next five years, Wickramasuriya said.

“We don’t expect it to be impossible to meet our entire national requirement from domestic production,” he said. “The first stage is offsetting import cost. The second stage is revenue from exports. We’re already looking at starting to impinge on imports using the Cairn gas.”
Economic Growth

President Rajapaksa is seeking to expand the economy at 7.5 percent this year after growth cooled to 6.4 percent in 2012 as demand fell for exports ranging from tea to textiles. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka reduced benchmark borrowing costs in December and May after raising them in February and April last year and letting the rupee weaken to tackle a trade deficit that depleted foreign exchange reserves.

“The big difference between this bid round and the first one is this comes post the Cairn discoveries, so there’s a significant de-risking from that,” Wickramasuriya said. “The economic impact of our own oil and gas will phase in over the next three to four years.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Rakteem Katakey in New Delhi at rkatakey@bloomberg.net; Anusha Ondaatjie in Colombo at anushao@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jason Rogers at jrogers73@bloomberg.n

Do you know how Anton Balansingham created the shape of Tamil Ealam?

2/3 shore line plus sea rights was requested in the 2005 peace talks. The shore line was agreed but the sea rights were disagreed. Tigers left..... the rest is history

let's hope that we will find oil and our stock market will sky rocket

Cairn and Sri Lanka in talks over gas pricing

25 Jul, 2013 13:32:42
July 25, 2013 (LBO) - Cairn Lanka, a unit of India-based Cairn is in talks with Sri Lanka's government over gas pricing and commercial terms following the discoveries made in two wells, the company said.

"Monetization of the existing discoveries continues to be evaluated under various development & commercial scenarios," the parent firm said in an interims statement to shareholders.

"Discussions with the Government of Sri Lanka regarding commercial terms and gas pricing are progressing."

The company said it was considering options for the third phase in appraisal and exploration.

http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/news/cairn-and-sri-lanka-in-talks-over-gas-pricing/2125406491

http://www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachLive/Cairn_India_Ltd_240713.pdf

Srilanka,the miracle of asia.coming soon??