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Belize discovers oil, secures well
by Lisa J Adams

The Associated Press    Translate This Article
11 August 2005

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Belize has struck oil. After years of fruitless petroleum exploration by international companies, a private local concern, Belize Natural Energy Limited, and a partner company from Denver have secured a well that since July 30 has been producing an estimated 500 barrels of Grade 38 API sweet light crude oil a day, one of the company's directors, Sheila McCaffrey, confirmed Thursday.

Additional testing will be required to determine just how large the reservoir is—and thus the commercial viability of the site—McCaffrey said. The company shut the well down Wednesday while it builds the infrastructure necessary to conduct a 30-day flow-test to determine the reservoir's capacity.

McCaffrey said she hopes to begin the testing within two weeks.

The current rate of production is relatively insignificant; even the smallest viable oil nations pump several hundred thousands of barrels a day. Belize's neighbor Mexico, produces 3.4 million barrels a day.

But if the company is sitting on a reservoir that ultimately produced only 50,000 barrels a day, the resulting revenues could have dramatic consequences in a country with only 280,000 people and a gross domestic product of $1.8 billion, at least one oil analyst noted.

``For an economy like Belize it really wouldn't take a whole heck of a lot of oil production to have a pretty meaningful impact on GDP,'' said John Padilla, director of IPD Latin America, an oil, gas and power consultancy based in Mexico City, Caracas, Venezuela, and New York.

Belize is a small nation that imports 100 percent of its fossil fuels and whose economy is straining under the weight of current $65-a-barrel oil prices. The country imports and consumes 3,200 barrels a day of gasoline, according to 2002 U.S. government figures, the most recent available.

Belize Natural Energy has an onshore exploration license for 478,000 acres under the production-sharing agreement, government officials said. The company made its discovery onshore near the Guatemalan border.

Oil exploration has been conducted unsuccessfully in the past, with a total of 50 wells drilled that were declared not commercially viable or dry.

Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Gobal Good News comment:

Although Global Good News acknowledges that fossil fuels are not an ideal or sustainable source of energy, we feel the economic strength derived from this discovery will benefit Belize's sovereignty as a nation.





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