Aussie group offers to buy 40% stake in Nido oil field

Australian firm Yilgarn Gold Ltd. has offered to purchase a 40-percent stake in service contract (SC) 54 owned and operated by fellow Australian oil and gas exploration firm, Nido Petroleum Ltd.

However, the operation of SC 54, located in northwest Palawan, would still be majority controlled by the Nido group.

Nido said it would only accept the farm-in offer once Yilgarn completes two conditions.

Yilgarn, a publicly-listed mineral exploration company, will have to shoulder the acquisition of seismic data and drilling of a well to determine oil and gas reserves in the area.

"Yilgarn’s offer to farm-in is attractive because it incorporates both a seismic and a well program," Nido officials said. The deal "limits Nido’s exposure to around 27 percent of the estimated capital costs for the seismic program and the well."

Late last year, Nido decided to enter the second sub-phase of SC 54 in offshore northwest Palawan.  The decision commits Nido to drill a well with a minimum expenditure of $6 million.

SC 54 comprises approximately 500,000 hectares. The primary drilling target for SC 54 is the Coron North structure.

"The Coron North prospect is an excellent drilling target. It is rare that such a large structure with a proven play type, on trend with a large gas field and oil leg (Malampaya) and adjacent to an oil column (Coron 1) has remained undrilled, " Paul Quaife, Nido’s head of exploration, said.

Nido Petroleum Phils. (NPP), together with other Filipino oil companies as a consortium, presently operates the Nido and Matinloc fields offshore oilfields located in northwest Palawan that contributes about 5,000 barrels of oil per day to the Philippine energy mix. 

Aside from northwest Palawan, Nido also explores gas and oil reserves in the southern gas basin of the North Sea. 

Nido is based in Perth, Western Australia.