Watching the World: Triton seeks second Colombian giant

David Knott
[email protected]

Professional gamblers and exploration companies tend to play to a system. To succeed, both must also know when to cut their losses.

Tom Finck is chairman and CEO of Triton Energy Ltd., Dallas. Triton's system is to target high-risk, high-reward prospects.

"We go into basin areas with a proven hydrocarbon system," said Finck. "At the low end of the risk curve will be companies looking to replace reserves: majors and cash-constrained independents. Their targets will be the least risky, offering lower rewards but more certainty.

"The majors will devote part of their budget to riskier secondary plays, which tend to be more profitable. Our strategy is to go for these. Cusiana/Cupiagua was on this higher level of the curve."

Triton's big success was to persuade BP Exploration Operating Co. Ltd. to farm into a license where the giant Cusiana and Cupiagua reservoirs were found, in the eastern foothills of the Andes in Colombia.

Mirror image

BP and partners discovered more than 2.5 billion bbl of oil in an area where state firm Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos (Ecopetrol) found little.

Now Triton hopes to repeat its Cusiana/Cupiagua success, this time without big company financial backing. Triton is 50% interest holder and operator, with German partner Deminex Colombia Petroleum GmbH, of Guayabo A&B and Las Amelias contracts, in the western foothills of the Andes.

The licenses cover a total of almost 1.8 million acres, compared with 119,000 acres combined for the Cusiana and Cupiagua concessions.

Triton believes the westward verging thrust belt trend in Guayabo and Las Amelias is a mirror image of the Cusiana/Cupiagua trend.

Triton is currently acquiring seismic data in the north and south of the area and intends to drill two wells late in 1997 or early in 1998. Triton will target lower Cretaceous sands, at depths of 7,000 and 13,000 ft.

"As the area on the east side of the mountains plays out," said Finck, "we will be trying to use the same concepts on the other side, looking for large traps in overthrust areas."

Win some, lose some

As Triton prepares to hunt another giant in Colombia, it is also planning to develop five gas discoveries in the Thai/Malay joint development area in the Gulf of Thailand.

Here Triton is 50% interest holder and operator of Block A-18, with Petronas Carigali (JDA) Sdn. Bhd. as 50% partner.

Triton is negotiating jointly with governments of Thailand and Malaysia for supply of at least 2 tcf of gas to the countries' gas grids, at an initial rate of 300 MMcfd.

Negotiations are expected to conclude in phased development of Block A-18, beginning with the largest find, Cakerawala. First gas is anticipated in 2000.

Block A-18, like Cusiana/Cupiagua, shows the upside of a high-risk/high-reward system. But not any system always works.

At my last meeting with Triton 2 years ago, the company hoped to repeat the Cusiana/Cupiagua story in Argentina (OGJ, Mar. 27, 1995, p. 27).

"We found noncommercial hydrocarbons," said Finck. "There were oil deposits in small fields, so we fulfilled our license obligations and moved out."