Oil
For oil, since September 1995, and after years of discussions a formal agreement which was endorsed during a meeting in New York of President Menem and Prime Minister John Major, has opened the field to cooperation and joint exploration and exploitation of the south Atlantic.
The agreement has enabled the government of the islands to licence areas for exploration to the north and south of the Falklands/Malvinas which successfully took place last July 2nd., while it sets aside a joint special area, to the west where the areas with Argentina overlap and will be jointly managed.
The discussions over the legal framework for the licencing of the joint or special area, which is scheduled for next year are going ahead full steam.
The oil licencing round of the local government was preceded by the contracting of several seismic surveys done by Geco-Prakla and Spectrum Geophysical which revealed promising data. A total of six consortia, representing fourteen oil companies showed up on the closing day of the licencing, among which: British Gas with YPF; LASMO, which includes Desire a local Falklands/Malvinas partner; Amarada Hess with Evergreen; International Petroleum Corporation with the Swedish company Sands Petroleum. The fact all companies participated in consortia is because of the high cost of the drilling in this new province which is estimated between 10 and 15 million pounds for each well.
Fig: Illustrative project returns and revenue shares for a 500 million barrel offshore oilfield assuming exploration and appraisal costs of $50 million, $5 per barrel development costs including capital and drilling expenditure, an $18 per barrel oil price, start of production in year 8 of the project and peak production of 135,000 barrels per day four years later.
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