Publicly listed Philex Petroleum Corp. has increased its stake in oil and gas exploration firm Pitkin Petroleum Plc to 50.28 percent from 18.46 percent.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange Monday, Philex Petroleum said the additional interest was acquired through a subscription of 10 million new ordinary shares and the purchase of the 36.4 million shares held by existing shareholders.
According to Philex Petroleum, the new and existing shares were purchased at 75 US cents each for a total consideration of $34.8 million (P1.4 billion). The acquisition was funded through the advances from Philex Mining Corp., which owns 64.79 percent of Philex Petroleum.
UK-registered Pitkin Petroleum has operations in the Philippines, Vietnam, Peru and the United States.
Its key assets include a 25-percent interest in Vietnam Block 07/03, where it is expected to drill two exploration and appraisal wells starting July this year; a 25-percent interest in Peru Block Z-38, where a drilling program of up to three exploration wells is targeted to begin by the fourth quarter this year or the first quarter of 2014, depending on rig availability, and a 29.14-percent interest in Service Contract 14C2 off northwest Palawan, where the viability of redeveloping the West Linapacan oil field is currently being evaluated.
Pitkin Petroleum is part of the group that qualified for a service contract to explore and develop prospective oil and gas blocks within “Area 5”, which was offered by the Philippine government to investors under the Philippine Energy Contracting Round 4.
Area 5 is within the Northwest Palawan Basin, reportedly one of the most prolific oil and gas basins in the Philippines and home to the country’s most successful natural gas project, the $4.5-billion Malampaya gas field.
Production within the basin recently reached 58 million barrels of oil, 800 billion cubic feet of gas and 40 million barrels of condensate. It is estimated that the basin has a resource potential of 400 million barrels of oil and 2.2 trillion cubic feet of gas.