Petrobras confirmed this Thursday (5) the largest discovery of natural gas in Colombia’s history. The Sirius-2 marine well, located 77 km from Santa Marta, is 830 meters below sea level.
Drilling, which began in June this year, confirmed gas volumes exceeding 6 trillion cubic feet in place. If its exploration viability is confirmed, the result could, in itself, triple Colombia’s reserves, which would help improve the country’s current economic condition.
The expectation is to begin natural gas production in three years after receiving all environmental licenses and if the commercial viability of the discovery is confirmed, scheduled for 2027, the company highlighted in a statement.
The expected production, through four producing wells “in an innovative ‘subsea to shore’ design”, is around 13 million cubic meters per day, for 10 years.
We have spent the last 20 years searching for the largest natural gas reservoir in the country and today we are announcing its discovery
Ricardo Roa, CEO of Ecopetrol
This month, Colombia began facing a natural gas deficit, and deepwater wells like Sirius-2 are the main hope for reversing the situation. Ecopetrol chief executive Ricardo Roa said the company is reducing its natural gas consumption to alleviate the deficit, and also has plans to build a liquefied natural gas facility to increase imports.
The consortium responsible for the project, formed by the Petrobras subsidiary in Colombia and Ecopetrol, estimates investing US$1.2 billion in the exploratory phase and US$2.9 billion in the production development phase.
Petrobras is the operator of the block with a 44.44% stake, while Ecopetrol holds 55.56% of the asset.
The investments made by Petrobras are included in the Brazilian oil company’s 2025-2029 Business Plan.
“With this discovery of great volumetric potential for natural gas, the socio-environmental and licensing procedures necessary to transport the gas to consumption centers will begin,” he highlighted.
Petrobras stated in a statement that the consortium will begin activities to acquire “meta-oceanic” data, as part of the Production Development Project for the discovery.
“These data, together with environmental information about the seabed, bathymetry, geotechnical and geophysical information, are essential for the installation of the gas pipeline to transport natural gas from the field to the onshore gas treatment unit, as well as for the installation of production systems on the seabed”, explained the company.
*With information from Reuters and Bloomberg.