Uruguay has discovered a promising offshore gas deposit that has the potential to turn its small agricultural- and services-orientated economy into that of a net gas exporter in an increasingly gas-starved region, according to Daniel Martínez, the country’s industry and energy minister.
The resource, located 100 km (60 miles) off the coast of Uruguay’s fashionable Punta del Este resort, shares geological features of the Santos Basin, where neighbouring Brazil has made important discoveries. These include the Tupi field, with its estimated recoverable reserves of 5bn to 8bn barrels of oil and natural gas.
Uruguay’s expectations are more modest, but Mr Martínez said “bright spots” of seismic surveys indicated gas in several places, at depths of 300m to 5.5km. Development was “technically and economically viable”.
The government reckons there is oil too, but Mr Martínez cautioned that the experimental drilling to begin in two to three years would need to establish a more accurate picture.
“We could be talking of some deposits of 12m cubic metres [of gas] a day . . . In the worst-case scenario, we could be exporting seven million to eight million cubic metres a day. That would be great for the region,” he told the Financial Times in an interview from Montevideo.
Mr Martínez said Uruguay, which prides itself on providing investment guarantees in an often turbulent region, had embarked on a charm offensive in Texas, Rome, Madrid, India, South Africa and London to “seduce” investors in advance of a presentation in December in Montevideo and a tender next July.
Raúl Sendic, president of Uruguay’s state energy company, Ancap, said Spain’s Repsol-YPF, France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Britain’s BP had expressed interest in Uruguay’s discovery.
Brazil, Argentina and Chile rely heavily on gas, but supplies are under increasing pressure. Record crude prices have prompted governments and companies to scour the globe for prospects or to renew interest in previously rejected ones.
In Paraguay, where hydrocarbons exploration has disappointed for decades, US-based Pantera Petroleum has revisited 1990s seismic data. It says it has found a potential 129m barrel oil reserve to cover domestic demand for 18 years.
