BHP delivers on LeClerc deepwater discovery

BHP Billiton has found 113 bcm-142 bcm (4 tcf-5 tcf) of gas in its offshore LeClerc play, Trinidad and Tobago’s minister of energy, Franklin Kahn, announced Wednesday.

BHP Billiton plans to drill an additional two extension wells at LeClerc in 2018. According to Geraldine Slattery, the company’s president of conventional assets, the country’s first deepwater discovery could be producing commercially by the mid-2020s.
Originally discovered in August 2016, the LeClerc development is located in block TTDAA 5. BHP Billiton controls a 65% stake in the deepwater asset in partnership with Shell, which controls the remaining 35% share.

Nine of Trinidad and Tobago’s deepwater blocks are being developed by BHP Billiton. The Ministry of Energy has projected that the assets collectively hold some 2 billion-8 billion barrels of crude oil and between 283 bcm-1.13 tcm (10 tcf-40 tcf) of natural gas reserves.

The discovery is cause for much celebration in the Caribbean nation, where gas curtailments have hampered the downstream sector since 2010. Development of the LeClerc asset will not only help to relieve shortages, it will also breathe new life into the economy.