Nido plans to drill in new prospect under SC 63

Australian firm Nido Petroleum Ltd. plans to drill an exploration well in a new prospect within the area covered by Service Contract 63 in offshore Palawan.

In a regulatory filing, Nido Petroleum said the SC 63 joint venture was considering the Baragatan Prospect as its lead drilling activity under the said service contract.

“The Baragatan Prospect is a large well-defined fault prospect estimated to contain gross unrisked oil-in-place volume of between 679 million and 977 million barrels. The objective reservoir would be the Pagasa sandstones which are analogous to the producing reservoir at the Galoc oil field,” Nido Petroleum said.

The exploration firm said it was expecting the SC 63 joint venture to approve the drilling of the prospect within this quarter, after which it would “actively commence the necessary preparations for the drilling campaign.”

Nido Petroleum holds a 50-percent interest in the SC 63 license while the remaining 50 percent is held by PNOC Exploration Corp., the oil and gas exploration arm of state-run Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC).

The service contract license covers a number of prospects, including the Apribada prospect, which reportedly has a prospective resource potential of 1 billion barrels of oil; the Aboabo site, which was estimated to contain a resource potential of 370 million barrels; and the Pinta Flores prospect, with 150 million barrels.

The Philippine government is aggressively pushing for the exploration and development of the country’s indigenous resources, with the belief that this can help the country meet its daily demand of petroleum products and reduce importation of oil.

More importantly, developing the country’s own resources is deemed to be a long-term plan of action that will reduce the country’s dependence on imported petroleum products and mitigate the effects of oil price volatility.