The Venezuela gov­ern­ment has award­ed an ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cence for Phase 2 of the Lo­ran field in the Platafor­ma Deltana area, in a move that is ex­pect­ed to ad­vance gas de­vel­op­ment off­shore T&T.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, BP said Lo­ran Phase 2, which is lo­cat­ed in the Colum­bus Basin off Trinidad's south east coast, con­tains an es­ti­mat­ed 4 tril­lion cu­bic feet of re­cov­er­able gas re­sources.

BP was grant­ed the li­cence for Lo­ran Phase 2 in part­ner­ship with XRG, the in­ter­na­tion­al en­er­gy in­vest­ment arm of the Abu Dhabi Na­tion­al Oil Com­pa­ny, and Qatar-based UCC Oil and Gas Hold­ing LLC. Each par­ty holds an equal work­ing in­ter­est share in the nat­ur­al gas field, which will be op­er­at­ed by BP.