Business news

GOMEL, 20 September (BelTA) – The Belarusian industrial group Belorusneft intends to drill and fit out seven prospecting and development oil wells in the Armadillo oil field in Ecuador in 2018, the company’s press service told BelTA.

The project will be implemented in line with the 15-year contract on providing specialized integrated services that the Ecuadorian state oil extraction company Petroamazonas and Belorusneft’s daughter enterprise Service Oil Ecuador Ecuaservoil have signed. Three wells have been drilled in the oil field and a production test has begun. One of the wells has secured a steady commercial inflow of dry crude oil to the tune of 100 tonnes per day.

Geological exploration and consequent data confirmed that Belarusian specialists had discovered a new oil reservoir. The simultaneously drilled wells serve prospecting purposes in order to ascertain the structure of the oil field. There are plans to drill a total of 12 wells in the area in the next few years.

The oil field is located in block No.55, which is situated in Napo, a province in the eastern part of Ecuador’s central part. It is one of the country’s oil-bearing regions. Specialists believe that the Armadillo oil field stores 10 million barrels of oil. It is a comparatively small number for Ecuador but the reserves are sufficient for 15 years of effective work. There are plans for additional geological exploration work in the area for the sake of evaluating the commercial potential of the entire block.

The Belarusian industrial group Belorusneft was founded in 1966. The company specializes in the surveying, prospecting and development of oil fields, well drilling, oil and associated petroleum gas extraction in Belarus and a number of other countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Ecuador.