There are many countries with oil and gas opportunities in South and Central America and the Caribbean. Some will not let foreign oil and gas companies in, some do not have great potential for oil and gas compared to others, some have large bureaucratic procedures and some are politically unstable.

Gold has had to be selective in its approach to which countries to target in this early stage of its development, but Gold has identified some really exciting oil structures, in some countries that we are positive we would never be allowed to exploit and so they have been put in the bottom drawer until the regime or working environment is changed.

Projects

• Brazil (click to open)
• Spain(click to open)

Status    

March 06, 2008
Ecuador
Ecuador is rich in oil and gas and has had seen little exploration or development expenditure over the last few years mainly due to the uncertain policies of the Government.  A new “marginal fields” tender was prepared a few years back and has now reached the stage where the contracts are ready for signature. (This has occurred most years over the last six years without any successful outcome.)  We have not looked at any of the tenders prior to bidding, as we view tendering as a bureaucratic exercise wasting time, resources and money, but we have viewed a few of the tenders of the winning bids.
The fields on offer are technically very attractive, but require substantial investment in exploration, development and infrastructure with the State taking up to 90% of the rewards. We view the terms are horrendous even for the winning bidder, never mind for a company trying to farmin post award. So far we fail to see how an investor can make money in Ecuador. 

Archive   

Archive 2008

Archive 2007