FAILING to find an investment partner for Jamaica, after giving up on Guyana in April, Sagres Energy has shifted focus to Colombia.

The Canadian oil and gas outfit lost its licence to explore three blocks offshore Jamaica this week, due to its failure to meet its financial obligations.

The company said that it will instead 'exclusively focus" its attention and near-term resources on its Colombian exploration assets.

Sagres is part of a joint venture on the El Triunfo block which is comprised of 25,205 gross acres in the oil-rich Llanos Basin in Colombia. It said yesterday that it is at an advanced exploration stage with multiple drill-ready prospects and extensive seismic coverage, including 3D seismic, on the main prospect.

Rainville, the subsidiary of Sagres which got the Jamaica licence in 2006, spent at least the last 18 months seeking an investment partner to get on board.

It needed to secure funding for the second phase of the programme, which included the drilling of an exploratory well by November 2013, but apparently failed to do so, despite getting two extensions.

Consequently, the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica yanked its oil exploration rights.

In April, the Calgary-based outfit surrendered its interest in an exploration licence in Guyana.

It had a 25 per cent interest in a petroleum prospecting licence for a 7,800 km oil-and-gas exploration block in the Takutu Basin in Central Guyana.

Sagres held its stake of the licence for two years, acquiring it on October 30, 2009 pursuant to a "farm-in" agreement with Canacol Energy.

Test wells at the Takutu site, drilled between December 2010 and April 2011, did not return favourable results.