Galoc oil yield seen higher

Oil yield from the Galoc oil field in offshore Northwest Palawan is seen increasing by 19.2 percent to 12.4 million stock tank barrels (MMstb) based on a reserves assessment as of the end of the first semester, from 10.4 MMstb as of end-2010.

In a disclosure to the Australian Stock Exchange on Thursday, Nido Petroleum Ltd., one of the participants in Service Contract 14C1 covering the Galoc field, said that a reserves assessment conducted by Gaffney Cline and Associates (GCA) in the first half of the year showed that recoverable reserves in the Proved (1P) category had gone up since the last assessment in the second half of 2010.

“The estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) for the Galoc field at the Proved (1P) category level on a 100-percent basis has increased by 19.2 percent from 10.4 MMstb to 12.4 Mmstb. The EUR of the 2P and 3P categories remains essentially unchanged,” the disclosure stated. “The reported increase in the EUR for the 1P category is attributable to better-than-expected reservoir performance during the first half of 2011.”

2P refers to reserves in the Proved and Probable category, while 3P pertains to reserves in the Proved, Probable, and Possible category.

According to GCA’s assessment, reserves in the 2P category also increased by 1.6 percent to 18.6 MMstb as of end-June, from 18.3 MMstb the previous semester. Reserves in the 3P category, on the other hand, slipped by 2.2 percent to 26.3 MMstb from July-December 2010’s 26.9 MMstb.

Since the Galoc field started commercial oil production in October 2008 up to the end of the assessment period, 7.5 MMstb of oil had already been pumped out of the field.

This left 4.9 MMstb of recoverable oil reserves in the 1P category, which the SC14C1 consortium could still produce.

Nido holds a 22.88-percent share in SC14C1. The biggest shareholder, and also the operator of the SC, is Galoc Production Co. WLL with a 33-percent stake. This company is owned by Otto Energy Ltd., also an Australian company.