Field | Pirity |
Province | Paraguay |
Working Interest | 50% |
Operator | Molecular Energies PLC |
Concession End Date | September 2024 |
Status | Exploration and Exploitation Contract |
Field | Hernandarias |
Province | Paraguay |
Working Interest | 40% (right to earn up to 80%) |
Operator | Molecular Energies PLC |
Concession End Date | September 2023 |
Status | Exploration and Exploitation Contract |
Molecular Energies PLC’s acreage in Paraguay is comprised of two blocks; the Pirity Concession which Molecular Energies PLC operates with 50% interest, and the Hernandarias Concession which Molecular Energies PLC operates with a 40% interest and right to earn up to 80%. This acreage covers a contiguous area of 16,000 km² and significantly, encompasses the entire prospective area of the Pirity sub-basin within northwest Paraguay, which lies in the more regionally extensive Chaco Basin.
In June 2021, Molecular Energies PLC announced that an agreement has been signed with a substantial Northern Hemisphere state-owned energy company, to farm in for a 50% working interest in the Pirity Concession, Paraguay. In return, the Farminee will pay 60% of the costs of an exploration well currently scheduled to commence during H1 2022 and will also pay Molecular Energies PLC US$4m in consideration of the Company agreeing to enter into its performance obligations under the Agreement. The exploration well will target the Delray complex of prospects, estimated by the Company to contain in aggregate over 260 MMbo of Pmean Unrisked Resources. Costs of the well are estimated at between US$10-15 million with an estimated chance of success of 17%
PIRITY
Operator and 50% interest
HERNANDARIAS
Operator and 40% interest and right to earn up to 80%
Current Operations
Molecular Energies PLC holds extensive acreage in the proven Cretaceous Olmedo sub-basin both in Argentina, where there they have current production, and in the relatively unexplored eastern part of the same basin extending into Paraguay. Cretaceous and Paleozoic plays have been mapped from proven oil and gas fields close to the Paraguay and Bolivian borders, into Paraguay where a limited number of wild-cat exploration wells over a 60 year period have demonstrated a working hydrocarbon system.
Molecular Energies PLC has carried out an extensive exploration programme in Paraguay, including interpretation of 6,435 km of existing regional 2D, of which 2,098 km has been reprocessed, together with the acquisition of 1,662 km new 2D and 781 km² new 3D seismic surveys by Molecular Energies PLC between 2012 & 2014. This was followed by successful exploration drilling in the Palaeozoic Play on the northern flank of the sub-basin, which resulted in the Lapacho technical discovery. The Lapacho-1 well encountered two potentially significant columns of oil and gas in stacked, fractured Devonian & Silurian reservoirs. Difficult drilling conditions and engineering problems meant it was not possible to flow oil or gas to surface, and the well was abandoned for safety reasons. So, although mobile hydrocarbons were observed in the well, the tests failed to demonstrate commercial deliverability of the oil and gas reservoirs encountered.
The Cretaceous sand and volcanic oil play remains undrilled on the southern flank of the Pirity sub-basin in Paraguay despite being on trend with the Palmar Largo complex in Argentina where light oil is produced from identical good quality Cretaceous sand and volcanic reservoirs. This Palmar Largo complex in Argentina lies only 30 km from similar Cretaceous prospects mapped by Molecular Energies PLC in their Pirity Concession.
Molecular Energies PLC has now mapped over thirty prospects and leads across their combined Concessions in Paraguay, which have a combined estimated ‘mean’ potential of 3 billion boe unrisked prospective conventional oil and gas resources, with large unsurveyed areas on trend with excellent prospectivity. The Cretaceous potential mapped to date in the south-west part of the Pirity Concession includes six prospects and three leads which have been upgraded by recent studies to include an estimated combined prospective resource of over 500 MMboe.
Significantly, in 2017 Molecular Energies PLC completed a geochemical remote-sensing study over proven fields in Argentina and primary prospects in Paraguay, which demonstrated the presence of anomalies over proven fields and also over the newly defined structures Molecular Energies PLC has mapped.
In addition on the southern flank of the basin, below Cretaceous prospects there is a deeper, largely unevaluated Palaeozoic play, as well as unconventional potential, also recognised in the acreage.