The New Year may very well bring some good news for CGX Energy Inc if the early signs from their geo-chemical survey carried out in October on its Berbice concession continue to be positive.
Earlier this month, CGX announced that it had successfully raised US$2.3M to advance its exploration programme on its extensive onshore and offshore concessions in Guyana.
The release announcing the completion of the financing said, "The funds raised will allow us to follow up any positive results with 2-D seismic or drilling."
CGXC followed up this release with another last week announcing the receipt of positive results from the 4000 of the 8000 samples it has analysed for microbes that flourish in the presence of hydrocarbon microseepage.
The release from CGX's Toronto office said, "A number of significant sized areas with seepage readings well above background have been identified".
Guyanese-born Dr Kamal Dookie, one of CGX's founders in an interview with Caribbean Energy which appears in its December 2003 issue, said, "If the 2D identifies drillable traps we will drill several exploration wells to evaluate the anomalies."
The CGX release also quoted its vice president for explorations, Warren Workman as saying, "We are pleased by the initial results" and that "as a result of the favourable sampling, additional infill samples on the large seepage areas will be analysed. Sorbed gas analysis will also be performed. The sorbed gas analysis will assist in fingerprinting the hydrocarbons in the areas with elevated microbial concentrations."
It also quotes CGX's president, Kerry Sully as saying, "Our preliminary exploration is proceeding well and we look forward to an accelerated exploration programme early in the New Year."
He said too that the analogies in the basin are the same as Tambaredjo and Calcutta onshore oilfields in Suriname. Tam-baredjo has reserves estimated at 167 million barrel and Calcutta 15 million.
Dr Dookie, in the interview with Caribbean Energy, said good results from geo-chemical sampling on the Nickerie One and Two blocks across the Corentyne River in Suriname suggested that the same exercise in Berbice could produce positive results.
The 8000 samples were taken in October from its 800,000-acre on-land concession in the Berbice area which is held by CGX's wholly owned subsidiary, ON Energy INC, a company registered in Guyana. The Oklahoma-based company GeoMicrobial Technologies (GMT) conducted the collection of the samples and is carrying out the analysis of the samples at its US laboratories.
ON Energy has filed a prospectus with the Guyana Securities Council in a bid to raise up to US$750,000 in Guyana, which if the full amount is subscribed would decrease CGX's share to 80 per cent.
CGX, shifted to its onshore concessions earlier this year.
The move to look at its onshore concession was prompted by reports of indications of oil including wells drilled by Trinidad Leaseholds that found some heavy oil at around 5000-6000 feet.
The onshore concession is adjacent to CGX's off-shore concession which lies in the Guyana Basin that the United States Geological Survey describes as "one of the last remaining poorly explored but highly prospective basins."
There have been other indications of oil seeps at Mara, East Bank Berbice where it was reported in a letter to Prime Minister Sam Hinds from Magabar Sawh "of oil and pitch floating on the riverbank. Sawh also reported seeing other oil seeps during the "biggest dry weather seen in the 1930s" at locations which Workman said "confirms there is migration of hydrocarbon from the Canje Formation source kitchen offshore. It is been deflected to the surface by basement highs."
Dr Dookie in the interview with Caribbean Energy said that CGX was thinking "of a field of up to 100 million barrels". This amount is more modest than the 850 million CGX had hoped to tap from its offshore concession from which it was ejected by Surinamese gunboats on June 3 2003. Suriname is contesting the ownership of the maritime area off the Corentyne coast which is internationally accepted as Guyana's territory.
But Dr Dookie told Caribbean Energy that his company hopes to interest Trinidad and Tobago investors in backing its exploration, and has retained a Port of Spain company, CMMB Securities, an associate company of Caribbean Money Market Brokers, as an agent for future placement of ON's shares on the local market. It is not clear if CMMB has registered with the stock exchange as required as an underwriter.