Touchstone's Trinidad project gets go ahead
Toronto-listed independent Touchstone Exploration on August 17 it had received a certificate of environmental clearance to move ahead with development of its Cascadura gas project in Trinidad and Tobago's onshore Ortoire block.
The sanction from Trinidad's Environmental Management Authority paves the way for a 200mn ft3/d gas capacity multi-well production plant at surface level, which will also be capable of processing 5,000 barrels/day of liquids and 200 barrels of produced water.
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The wellsite at Cascadura's "A" wellsite will contain enough storage to hold 8,800 liquid barrels, while eight wells will be drilled at the Cascadura B and C pads to extract hydrocarbons. Ortoire will also gain new associated pipelines and infrastructure.
Ortoire stretches 44,731 gross acres on the eastern side of Trinidad, the nation's largest island. Touchstone holds an 80% working interest in the licence, with Heritage Petroleum Company owning the remaining 20%.
Originally signed in 2014, the licence agreement was later extended after Touchstone and its partners encountered four commercial-grade hydrocarbon deposits: Coho, Cascadura, Chinook and Royston.
The Cascadura exploration well flowed back 26.8mn ft3/d of natural gas in production testing, as well as 691 barrels/day of liquids. A second stage test produced 28.1mn ft3/d of gas.
With permissions secured, building work on the surface facility can begin immediately. The facility will be used to launch production from two existing wells in the area, as set out under Touchstone's planning proposal. Meanwhile, Trinidad's national gas company has started building a 1.7km, 20-inch pipeline to the Cascadura facility.
As well as Cascadura-1, Touchstone is also ramping up operations at its Coho-1 production well, which is slated to produce around 10mn ft3/day.
Coho-1 represents Trinidad's first new onshore gas opportunity in 20 years, with most active upstream Trinidadian assets operating offshore. The gas in Coho's reservoirs is highly concentrated, containing 98.7% pure methane, Touchstone says.
Paul Baay, president and CEO of Touchstone said: "This is a major step forward for the Cascadura project as we progress from the exploration phase to the development and production phase. It has been a thorough process, but the positive outcome now allows us to establish a clear and measurable five-year development plan for the discovery."