Service contracts up for grabs

The Philippine government expects to award before the end of the year the service contracts that will allow companies to explore and develop some of the country’s oil, gas and coal blocks that have been offered under the fourth Philippine Energy Contracting Round.

On the sidelines of the Upstream Energy 2012 conference Wednesday, Energy Undersecretary Ramon Allan V. Oca said that ranking government officials are now reviewing the development proposals submitted by coal and petroleum exploration firms.

“We want to make sure that, when we award the service contracts, these will be given to the most qualified. We want to ensure that the process is fair,” Oca said.

Energy officials earlier received 20 bids for 11 of the 15 oil and gas areas offered under the PECR 4 in 2011.

This meant that four areas did not receive any offers from the private sector.

For coal, the DOE received a total of 69 bids for 28 of the 38 coal blocks offered—leaving 10 areas without bids. These bids for both coal and petroleum were opened earlier this year.

Although exploration work in the country continues to attract private sector interest, the Philippines still has abundant resources that remain untapped.

Data from the Department of Energy showed that the Philippines has a potential resource of 8.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent; 3.27 billion barrels of oil; 28.5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 164 million barrels of condensate.

Coal reserves meanwhile were estimated at 446 million metric tons, or 18.8 percent of the country’s total coal resource potential of 2.37 billion metric tons.