Geological Society of Trinidad & Tobago

GEONEWS

NO.7 JULY 1996

CUBAN WORKSHOP

The GSTT recently conducted a five-day workshop in 3-D seismic interpretation for 23 senior Cuban geologists and geophysicists. Held in Havana,
Cuba from June 3 - 7, the workshop was facilitated by Anthony Paul, Steve Geetan and Lindy Phillip. It resulted from an invitation to the GSTT by
the Cuban Geological Society, the Latin American Centre for Physics and the Cuban Geophysics Division, following the 14th Latin American
Geological Congress held in Trinidad last year.

President Anthony Paul gave a synopsis of the trip.

"The workshop was developed, designed, put together and presented entirely by the members of the GSTT, using our own experiences, skills and
training. As a direct consequence of this workshop, many opportunities for collaboration in science and technology, particularly as they relate to the
earth sciences and the petroleum industry were identified. These were emphasized in all our discussions with the various scientific organizations,
research centers and petroleum companies in Cuba. The GSTT and the Cuban Geological Society signed an agreement for future, continued
collaboration.

So impressed were the participants and their organizations with the level of skills and experience available in Trinidad and Tobago, that they
contacted the Minister of Basic Industries of Cuba, Marcos Portal, who visited us at our hotel to congratulate and thank us for our assistance. He
has indicated that he will communicate directly with our government, to initiate, facilitate and improve cooperation between Cupet (the Cuban state
oil company) and Petrotrin, the University of the West Indies and its Cuban counterparts.

He also expressed his desire to host a delegation of Trinidad and Tobago institutions and companies, who might be interested in participating in the
Cuban oil industry. The GSTT was asked to facilitate this activity.

One of the highlights of our trip to Cuba, was experiencing old Havana. This is indeed a treasure, as recently declared by the United Nations. The
history and beauty of the old city, its buildings and forts were joys to behold. Currently, there is a major restoration exercise involving many of the
old buildings. This is funded in part by UNESCO. Miguel Martin, the head of Habaguanex, the company directly responsible for this restoration
work, visited with Minister Portal and indicated his interest in having Trinidad and Tobago companies and nationals serve as a source of investment
and tourism in Cuba."

20th ANNVERSARY

This July marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of the GSTT. To mark this occasion the proposed Memoir of Trinidad geology will be in print
before the end of the year.

Please be reminded that the Annual General Meeting is tentatively carded for the 18th September 1996; note this date -in your diary.

DRILLING

During the months of May and June, a significant milestone was achieved, FOUR rigs were in operation, 1 for Petrotrin, Damus, Lease Operators
and Coastline. This has not happened since the 1980's.

Damus has drilled 3 wells in the New Dome Farmout, Hydrocarb, 2 in the Boodosingh Block, Coastline, 2 in the Tabaquite Farmout, Lease
Operators, 2 in Palo Seco and 1 in South Quarry.

No news has been released about Claro #1, La Novia #1 was drilled to 10,365' and abandoned without testing. The Coordinates of La Novia #1 is N
10' 21' 30.5" W 600 36' 01". At the end of this well the Adriatic IV was released.

British Gas is continuing with development drilling on the Dolphin platform, sales of gas have begun to the NGC.

Trinmar began drilling during the last week of June, they are using Well Services Marine 4.S718 the first well drilled is located in the Main Field at
N 10' 11.6', W 61'44.4'.

Petrotrin continues drilling in EFP#4. Drilling is concentrated in the Barrackpore area, with Intermediate Herrera objectives. Production from
previous EFP drilling has been good.

Coastline drilled 2 wells in Tabaquite,Johnson Road #4 and Alta Loma #1, both were drilled to Nariva objectives and abandoned without testing.

SEISMIC

PCOL and Petrotrin shot approximately 40km 2 3-D and 2-D seismic between Point D'Or in La Brea towards Tarouba Bay and from Freeman's Bay
into the Gulf of Paria. British Gas acquired 3-D seismic over their North Coast blocks in preparation for drilling further delineation wells later this
year.

NEW COMPANIES

Production risk sharing licences were signed between the government of T&T and B.H.P-Elf for Block 2C, and B.H.P/Talisman for Blocks 2 A&B.
No information is available about other blocks in that bid round.

NEW EXPLORATION AREA?

Some of us may remember the Los lros 'mud volcano' of a few years ago, well it has happened again. This new event apparently occurred in April,
but did not become public knowledge until the end of May. On the coast, the event has all the characteristics of an earth flow, rotated and uplifted
blocks are visible. The beach was uplifted about 6 feet above sea level and this uplift more extensive than the previous one. The material is
re-mobilised mud flow material. However, this time there are numerous large (6X3') blocks of oil saturated sandstone, boulders of Herrera sandstone
and conglomerate, the usual pieces of limestone with cone in cone features are also present. The presence of Herrera material indicates that these
reservoirs exist south of the Los Bajos Fault, and may be an exploration tar-get here. There is a pronounced fault scarp flanking the earth flow that
extends about 1-mile inland. At the head of the flow were 2 large and laterally continious cracks in the ground, which after a bush fire remained
lighting until the rains sealed the cracks. The flame was reported to be blue in colour. Two mud volcano cones also appeared the same day the cracks
appeared, and they have been fairly active.

This event seems to have breached previously unknown hydrocarbon reservoirs in the area. The closest well is Apex Erin 3.

Internet

For those of us on the Internet a site to investigate out is http:/www.iguide.com, this site has very interesting content including separate Geology and
Paleontology sections within the science area. Also for the foreign member-s visit http://caribbean-www.ics.mit.edu/caribbeanwwwlislands/tnt, or visit
the travel section of iguide and look for the Caribbean. Those of use who are interested in satellite imagery look up http://www.earthwatch.com.

Upcoming Conference

The Petroleum Group of the Geological Society of London will be hosting a conference in April 27-29 1997. The topic is "Field Reactivation for the
21st Century". The meeting will be held in the ancient city of Bath in western England. The meeting will be divided into four parts:

1)The political and economic drivers for oil (and gas) field reactivation.

2)Technological changes which have made reactivation possible (keynote speaker Dr. DAL Jenkins, BP Exploration)

3)The prize from reactivation.)

4) A decade of case histories (keynote speaker R. Sneider, Sneider Exploration, Dallas, USA).

The proceedings of the meeting will be published in the prestigious "Geol. Soc. Special Publications" series. If anyone in the Trinidadian Industry is
interested in presenting, abstracts should be submitted by 1st October this year. It the intention to collect manuscripts for the publication at the
meeting. This could allow publication before the end of 1997.

Contact Jon Gluyas at:

Monument Oil and Gas plc

80 Petty France

London

SW 1 8H 9EX

Telephone 44 171 233 1966

Fax 44 171 233 3476

E-mail: 100414.2357@Compuserve.com

You can send your comments, questions and articles to carchie@carib-link.net.