Government gets P1-billion royalties from Galoc oil field

MANILA, Philippines - The National Government has received almost P1 billion in royalties from the Galoc oil field under Service Contract 14C in northwest Palawan, an energy official said.

Energy Undersecretary Ramon Oca said the Galoc consortium as of February this year has remitted P976 million in royalties to the state coffers.

“Production from the Galoc oil field continue to provide a significant contribution to government’s coffers. We hope to find more oil producing fields in the future,” Oca said.

Galoc Production Co. (GPC) holds 58.29 percent of Service Contract 14C. Other members of the GPC consortium include Nido Petroleum, 22.28 percent; Oriental Petroleum & Minerals Corp. and Linapacan Oil Gas & Power Corp. with 7.57 percent; Philodrill Corp. with 7.03 percent; Forum Energy Corp. with 2.27 percent; Alcorn Gold, 1.53 percent; and PetroEnergy, 1.03 percent.

GPC started providing additional revenues to the National Government since June 2009, when the SC 14C field became commercially viable.

In 2010, production at the Galoc field ended with an average uptime of 84 percent, up from 63.5 percent in 2009.

As of end-December 2010, the Galoc field produced a total of 6.27 million barrels of oil.

Last month, GPC reported that it continues to assess the viability of entering the second phase of development of the Galoc field.

The company said Phase II development would enable the company to access more oil reserves and increase oil production.

In the last quarter of 2010, it was reported that the Galoc field produced an average of 4,813 barrels of oil per day.

Earlier estimates showed that Galoc oil field contains about 10 million barrels of oil.