Touchstone Exploration (TXP ) has received approval from the Government of Trinidad and Tobago for a five-year extension of its exploration and production licence for the Ortoire block.

The Alberta-based exploration company has an 80% operating working interest in the Ortoire block licence, with Heritage Petroleum Company holding the remaining 20% working interest.

The Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries said the GoTT has now approved the extension of the exploration period of the Ortoire Licence to 31 July 2026.

The extension will allow Touchstone to have a multi-faceted future drilling program, including development drilling at Cascadura, Royston and Coho and further exploration prospects.

As part of the extension, Touchstone is required to drill three exploration wells to minimum depths of 6,000 true vertical feet prior to the end of the amended Licence term, it explained.

The three exploration wells are in addition to the five previous wells drilled to date on the property. Similar to the previous minimum work program, Touchstone will be responsible for 100% of the drilling, completion and testing costs for the three additional exploration wells.

Shares in Touchstone Exploration were trading 1.23% higher this morning at 82.5p.

The extension will enable Touchstone to continue exploration operations on acreage that have not already been deemed commercial. To date, no acreage was surrendered pursuant to the extension, and the Licence amendment agreement is now required to be approved by the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Legal Affairs prior to execution by all parties.

Paul Baay, President and CEO, commented: “The formal approval of the Ortoire licence extension provides us with a unique opportunity to design and implement an expanded exploration program to fully evaluate our internally identified prospects on the acreage.”

He added: “Touchstone has proven that Ortoire is a resource-rich property, and we are excited to explore further prospects to potentially feed into our current infrastructure currently in construction. We would like to thank the MEEI for its continued support, and we welcome a further opportunity to partner and grow onshore Trinidad oil and natural gas production.”

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