Uruguayan state oil company ANCAP said the country could have a number of shallow-lying natural gas reserves as well as other previously identified oil resources.
A 2D seismic study by Petrel Energy Limited has indicated as much as 910 million barrels of oil and 3.1 trillion cubic feet of gas could lie under the soil in both the Salto and Piedra Sola regions.
ANCAP’s president Jose Coya said the oil and gas deposits were located at “relaatively shallow depths between 1,500 and 2,000 metres.”
Petrel Energy is a 51% shareholder of Schuepbach Energy International, whose subsidiary in Uruguay has been contracted to drill four exploratory wells between this year and 2017.
Uruguay is currently building a $1.1billion liquid natural gas (LNG) regasification plant.
The country consumes around 50,000 barrles of oil per day, which means the discovery could represent as much as 22 years of energy self-sufficiency.
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