Firms asked to revisit smaller oil, gas fields

The Department of Energy (DoE) is urging exploration companies to look into oil and gas fields deemed to have “marginal” resources, as the continued rise in oil prices and technological advancements may make such projects economically viable.

Energy Undersecretary Jose M. Layug Jr. said that now might be the best time for oil and gas firms to revisit existing data on sites that were said to contain “unrecoverable” resources.

These resources, he said, could be harnessed and used to help ensure Philippine energy security.

The so-called “unrecoverable resources,” according to Basic Energy Corp. vice president Alberto Morrillo, may already become recoverable given significant changes in “commercial circumstances and technological developments.”

He said some of these “contingent resources” might have been considered “not mature for commercial development” earlier as exploration did not make good business sense back then. “But these may now be potentially recoverable.”

Examples of such prospects are a number of sites off Palawan such as Nido 1X-1, West Linapacan A1x, Calauit 1B, San Martin A-1X, Abo-Abo-1x, Destacado-1x, Sampaguita 2, Cadlao, Octon and Bantac 1.

The DoE and the upstream oil and gas industry estimated the resources in these sites at about 2 million barrels of oil.

The Cadlao block, for instance, was previously abandoned by its old service contract holders. Today, however, it is now being developed by a new group.

In the meantime, DoE said it was evaluating the motions for reconsideration filed by companies, whose offers got rejected in a bidding held earlier under the Philippine Energy Contracting Round 4.—Amy R. Remo