Nido seeks partners for drilling projects

Australian firm Nido Petroleum Ltd. is seeking potential partners for its drilling activities in two petroleum service contracts in offshore Palawan.

In a regulatory filing, Nido Petroleum said discussions were underway for possible farm-out agreements under Service Contracts 58 and 63, both 50 percent controlled by the company.

These two are included in the four service contract areas where Nido is undertaking its five-well drilling program, which started in May.

After drilling an exploration well within the Gindara site (SC 54B), the company is now focusing on the second well to be drilled within SC 63.

“We continue to progress the SC 63 well, the second well of our five-well exploration program. In partnership with the PNOC Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC), the SC 63 well is scheduled to be drilled within the December 2011 to March 2012 window,” Nido Petroleum said.

According to Nido Petroleum, the drilling prospects have been narrowed to four possibilities, including Aboabo, which is an old gas discovery made by Phillips Petroleum in the early 1980s.

A re-mapping of this poorly defined structure with modern 3D seismic indicated that the Aboabo structure could potentially contain more than 1 trillion cubic feet of unrisked gas in-place or about 220 million barrels of oil equivalent.

“In addition, three exciting new prospects have been identified by the recent Kawayan 3D seismic survey over the southern portion of the block. In tandem with the ongoing subsurface work, the drilling team will commence well pre-planning activities over the next few months,” the company added.

“We are also continuing with our work on SC 58, particularly in the northern sector of this deepwater block where a number of interesting new structural leads have been identified with Nido Limestone and younger Miocene clastics reservoirs—the latter being the main producing reservoir in the nearby Galoc oil field,” the Australian firm further disclosed.