PNOC seeks new partner for Camago-Malampaya project

The Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) is scouting for a new partner for the development of the Camago-Malampaya oil leg (CMOL) in western Palawan.

PNOC president Eduardo V . Mañalac said the Department of Energy (DoE) will form a task force to be composed of members of the PNOC board, PNOC-Exploration Corp. (EC) board, their management and technical team.

The task force will formulate the bidding rules and procedures that will lead to the selection of the PNOC partner.

Mañalac said that the potential partners will be chosen through a transparent and competitive bidding procedure. "And we will have to design one specifically for the CMOL."

He said Malaysia’s Mitra Energy Ltd., which was earlier awarded the right to the oil field, and other investors are still welcome "to develop a very important resource for the Philippines .

The PNOC said the timeline could be a little ambitious since they want to award the contract before the end of the year or not later than February 2007.

"Extracting the oil is getting difficult, we are now targeting late 2007 to the first half of 2008," Mañalac said. "The recoverable reserves will drop, resulting to lower cost of development, even if the reserves we will recover will be slight lower than expec