SC 63 group earmarks P1.8B for drilling

The joint venture operating Service Contract 63 off southwest Palawan plans to spend about P1.8 billion to drill an exploration well by the middle of next year.

In a briefing Tuesday, PNOC Exploration Corp. chairman and chief executive officer Gemiliano Lopez Jr. said the amount would be shared equally by the partners in the SC 63 license.

PNOC-EC, the upstream oil and coal arm of state-run Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), holds a 50-percent interest and is the operator of the field. The other 50 percent is held by Australian firm Nido Petroleum Ltd.

According to Lopez, PNOC-EC’s board of directors had approved the allocation of P900 million to fund its share in the drilling operations within a petroleum block, covering 10,560 square kilometers.

Both PNOC-EC and Nido Petroleum earlier agreed to enter the subphase of the exploration program with the Department of Energy, which calls for the drilling of an offshore exploratory well.

The joint venture already identified the current window to drill the commitment well to be between June and October 2012. However, the final date for spudding a well will depend on the selection of a drill site, identified from a number of prospects by a joint geo-scientific group and rig availability, Lopez explained.—Amy R. Remo