Nido Petroleum to conduct more surveys in Palawan site

MANILA, Philippines - Australia-based Nido Petroleum Ltd. plans to conduct more oil and gas exploration surveys in its Service Contract (SC) 54A in Northwest Palawan, a top company official said.

In a report to the Australian Stock Exchange, Nido chief executive officer Jocot de Dios said the company is set to acquire approximately 70 line kilometers of new 2D seismic data over the Lawaan-Libas prospect under SC 54A.

According to De Dios, they expect results from the survey within this month.

“The survey is expected to take approximately two days to acquire and will be completed in early December 2011,” De Dios said.

De Dios said the survey will be acquired by seismic contractor Nordic Maritime Pte. Ltd. using the 2D seismic vessel MV ‘Nordic Energy’ currently on hire by Nido to acquire the Pawikan 2D seismic.

Based on company estimates, the Lawaan and Libas field could hold up to 34.7 million barrels and 12 million barrels of gross, unrisked, mean volume oil-in-place.

The Nido official said they hope to determine if the Lawaan and Libas field forms part of a large oil and gas prospect in the Northwest Palawan basin.

He said Nido is also expected to undertake exploration activities in Pawikan field in adjacent SC 54B coinciding that of the Lawaan and Labas surveys. Nido is also the operator of SC 54B.

“Confirmation that the two prospects are structurally connected would further upgrade the potential of the Lawaan prospect, which is currently the leading drilling candidate in SC 54A,” he said.

Nido is the operator of SC 54A, where it has a 42.4-percent stake. The company’s partners in the project are Yilgarn Petroleum Philippines Pty Ltd. (30.1 percent), Trafigura Ventures III B.V. (15 percent) and TG World (BV1) Corp. (12.5 percent).