IANS/EFE | 18 Aug, 2012
Colombia's Ecopetrol and two US joint venture partners have
discovered oil and gas at a deep-water well in the US Gulf of Mexico, the
Bogota-based firm said Thursday.
The discovery is the second by the venture made up of US firms Apache and Stone
Energy and Ecopetrol America, the Colombian state oil company's US subsidiary,
in an area Ecopetrol described as "one of the world's greatest hydrocarbon
prospectivity zones".
Ecopetrol said in a press release that the find was made at the Parmer
Prospect, located in the Green Canyon blocks 823 and
867.
The well was drilled to a depth of 5,760 meters and the data indicate a column
with signs of gas and condensate and another with signs of crude, the
spokesperson said.
The state-owned firm added that Apache, Stone Energy and Ecopetrol America will
reprocess 3-D seismic data in the coming months and "determine a
comprehensive delimitation and development plan based on the results".
The Parmer Prospect, in which Ecopetrol has a 30 percent stake and Apache is
the operator, is located some 230 km from the Louisiana coast and covers a roughly
46.6-sq.-km area.
In its press release, Ecopetrol said the find is part of the firm's "internationalization
strategy" and marks a further step in its bid "to attain a production
level of 1 million clean barrels of oil equivalent a day by 2015, and 1.3
million clean barrels by 2020".
In addition to Colombia and
the US Gulf of Mexico, Ecopetrol also has operations in Brazil and Peru.
