The history of hydrocarbon exploration in Panama

This article presents the history of hydrocarbon exploration in Panama and the scientific contribution that it made to the geological knowledge of Panama. The thirteen sedimentary basins—eight of which have been drilled, though only three in significant detail—include forearc, foreland, interarc, and backarc basins of late Cretaceous to Cenozoic age, associated with the Panama volcanic arc. Additionally, strike-slip pull-apart basins have formed as a result of the collision between the Panama Arc and the Northern Andes Block of the South American Plate since the Miocene. Panama has had more than one century of oil and gas exploration since 1912 but has never had any commercial production, and there are no established, economically recoverable reserves. Exploration originally targeted natural oil seeps. Hydrocarbon exploration took place in five stages: 1) an initial period of onshore exploration (1912-1928); 2) post-World War Two revival in onshore exploration (1945-1949); 3) an onshore exploration peak (1953-1962); 4) offshore shallow water exploration (1969-1991); and 5) recent offshore shallow water exploration, but with no drilling (2001- 2017). Thirteen wells discovered oil and/ or gas shows out of a total of 36 wells that were drilled between 1919 and 1989. The majority of the wells were drilled onshore. Eight wells were drilled offshore in shallow water, comprising five in the Gulf of Panama and three in the Caribbean and Bocas del Toro. Exploration was driven by the global economy and oil price, advances in exploration and drilling technology, and hydrocarbon legislation.