Economic Comparison for the Potential Development of Onshore Unconventional Resources and Offshore Conventional Prospects in Uruguay

Abstract As a result of the bidding Round 2009 and Uruguay Round II, 10 Production Sharing Agreements were signed for offshore areas, in which 8 IOCs are involved as contractors. The exploration that is currently taking place implies a superlative increase in the knowledge of Uruguayan offshore basins. For awarding onshore contracts there is an open door system in place. The fiscal regime is very similar to the one applied offshore, but with slight differences. Nowadays there are 4 contracts for exploration-exploitation of hydrocarbons onshore Uruguay, with 2 IOCs as contractors, in Uruguayan Norte basin, which is the southern extension of Chaco Paranaense Basin. The Norte basin potentially has Devonian-age shale oil and shale gas resources, in addition to conventional leads and prospects. This work presents an economic assessment for a shale gas and shale oil development in a 10 000 km2 Area in Norte Basin, resulting that the viability of the project could only be possible in the values of EUR higher than the P5 case, and it is strongly related to the drainage area and the cost of drilling, completing and hydraulic fracturing of the wells. In addition, for the sake of comparison of profitability indexes and project profit distribution related to slightly different fiscal regimes, the same resources volumes were considered for an offshore project. On the other hand, the results show that the offshore development project is economically viable for the case of higher resources volumes. Finally, the Minimum Economic Field Size was calculated for offshore prospects, for the oil and associated gas case. This work constitutes a first approach to a technical/economic evaluation applied to the development of unconventional resources onshore Uruguay, comparing its results to conventional prospects offshore Uruguay. Its findings and conclusions are significant for those international oil companies that are already carrying out or interested in potentially conducting exploration activities in both onshore and/or offshore Uruguayan basins. The results of this assessment are also very illustrative of the comparison of government's take for the different onshore and offshore fiscal regimes and represent a valuable input for ANCAP and the Uruguayan government to take into consideration to define offered areas policies.