Five contractors operating locally are going to explore for oil and gas in onshore fields owned by State company Petrotrin.

The contractors signed ten-year sub-licence agreements with Petrotrin for the seven fields in Petrotrin’s onshore eastern blocks.

These blocks are Inniss-Trinity, Moruga East, Goudron, Catshill, Beach-Marcelle, Navette and Balata East.They are located roughly between Princes Town and Mayaro and as far south as Moruga to Guayaguayare, Petrotrin president Kenneth Allum said during the signing ceremony at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Port of Spain yesterday.

The five contractors awarded the licences to operate the Petrotrin fields are Los Bajos Oil Ltd, Cameron Oil & Gas Ltd, Fram Exploration AS, A&V Drilling and Workover Ltd and API Pipeline Construction Company Ltd.

Some of the fields are remotely located and have generally received less focus than those within Petrotrin’s mainstream areas, Allum said, adding that there was limited drilling in these fields in recent years.

He said this did not negate the fact that they had ’significant remaining potential’.

Petrotrin anticipates an average production increase in the first year of at least 200 barrels per day.

’This should produce a total increase of 1,400 bopd for all seven fields and would translate into increased indigenous crude supply for our Pointe-a-Pierre refinery,’ Allum said.

He said the State firm was searching for new sources of equity crude because of the much higher cost of shipping crude from abroad, and given current favourable prices, it was more imperative that the company increases its supply of equity crude.