Trans-Asia to form West Palawan unit

MANILA, Philippines - Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp. will form a unit to consolidate its shares in an offshore oil project in Western Palawan.

In a disclosure, Trans-Asia also said it amended a purchase option with Australia’s Frontier Gasfields Pty. Ltd.

“The amendment agreement provides, among others, that upon exercise of its option, Frontier shall instead acquire shares in a Trans-Asia affiliate that would be organized to hold the parties’ joint interest in Service Contract (SC) 55,” the company said.

To date, Trans-Asia holds a 6.82-percent stake in SC 55.

It has an option to acquire another five-percent shares in NorAsian Energy Ltd., a subsidiary of Australia’s Otto Energy Ltd., after the drilling of the first exploratory well in the contract area.

In turn, Frontier can buy a five-percent stake in SC 55 from Trans-Asia.

In the previous deal, Frontier will buy into SC 55 by directly securing shares from Trans-Asia.

Frontier is required to pay $3.5 million to Trans-Asia, which has to account for five percent of the drilling costs.

The new affiliate firm will hold the combined 11.82-percent shares of Frontier and Trans-Asia.

SC 55, an offshore exploration project in Palawan, reportedly contains an estimated 1.8 trillion cubic feet of gas and 567 million barrels of oil.

Trans-Asia is on track to hitting a 20-percent growth in profits to a record P489 million this year.

The company owns and operates four plants with an aggregate production capacity of 186.4 megawatts. The bulk of energy sales came from contract customers, with excess output sold to the spot market.

Trans-Asia will enter into P33 billion worth of new projects in the next five years.

Trans-Asia also holds SC 6A and 6B in Northwest Palawan, SC 14 (Tara Block) and SC 14B-1 (North Matinloc) in Northwest Palawan, SC 51 in the East Visayan Basin and SC 69 in the Visayas Basin.