PetroEnergy, partners pursue studies on Phl oil prospects

MANILA, Philippines -   Resources Corp. and its partners are pursuing technical studies on several local oil prospects to prepare drilling when the international oil market improves.

The company and its joint venture partners are still waiting for oil prices to recover before committing to any drilling activities in its existing oil and gas prospects in the country, PetroEnergy vice president Francisco Delfin Jr. said in an analysts’ briefing yesterday.

Crude oil is expected to hit $55 per barrel this year and is seen to increase to an average $60 per barrel next year, based on World Bank estimates. While these show an increase from $43 per barrel average last year, they are still roughly half lower compared with the $104 per barrel average in 2013.

In the Philippines, PetroEnergy has four oil projects that are drill-ready: Service Contract-6A (Octon-Malajon) in northwest Palawan where it has a 16.67 percent interest; SC-14C2 (West Linapacan-Galoc) also in northwest Palawan where it owns 4.137 percent; SC 51 in the east Visayan basin with a 20.05 percent interest; and SC 75 offshore northwest Palawan  with 15 percent ownership.

For SC 6A, the consortium has an ongoing re-processing and quantitative interpretation of the project’s previous seismic data for eventual drilling of the Octon, Malajon and Salvacion prospects.

The same goes for SC 14C2, where PetroEnergy and its partners are also undetaking quantitative interpretation of data for new field developments.

Meanwhile, the SC 51 consortium is planning to conduct pore pressure study gravity survey to evaluate further leads.

Among the four oil projects, Delfin said Octon and West Linapacan are the more advanced oil projects in the Philippines.

“[There’s] no planned drilling [this year] but after our operators for Octon and West Linapacan are completing the technical studies in order to mature the prospects into drillable status by the time the oil market improves,” he said.

As in its project in Gabon, West Africa, PetroEnergy and its partners are not priming for any new drilling.

“In Gabon, we are still very much active although the consortium in Gabon collectively decided to reduce capital expenditures in the midst of the current oil downturn. So, we have reduced the number of drilling, our focus now is to maximize lifting,” Delfin said.