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By Euan Paolo C. Añonuevo Reporter
PETRONAS has pulled out of the
Philippines after finding insignificant petroleum reserves in its
service contract (SC) area in offshore Mindoro.
The Malaysian oil giant, through
its overseas exploration and production arm Petronas Carigali
Overseas Sdn Bhd, holds an 80-percent interest in SC 47 in the said
area, covering 1.5 million hectares and including the Tablas and
Kamia prospects.
The rest of the shares in SC 47
are held by state-owned Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration
Corp. (PNOC-EC) with 19.4 percent, PetroEnergy Resources Corp. with
0.4 percent and Basic Petroleum Inc. with 0.2 percent.
PNOC-EC officials said Petronas,
which operates the project, decided to withdraw from the said
exploration block after drilling in the “Kamia-1 well did not
result [in] an oil discovery although some oil shows were
encountered.”
Petronas and its partners
completed the drilling of Kamia-1 well in September last year with
minor oil and gas results. The SC 47 consortium had conducted
post-well evaluation studies since then and eventually led to the
Malaysian oil firm’s recent pull out.
The drilling program for the
block cost the consortium about $23 million.
The SC 47 consortium earlier
projected the site to contain around 158 million barrels of oil,
raising hopes of the discovery of oil and gas reserves for eventual
commercial development.
The government is banking on the
local upstream oil and gas industry to spur the development of the
country’s indigenous energy resources to lessen its reliance on
expensive oil imports.
Early in the month, the
Department of Energy awarded five petroleum exploration service
contracts across the country.
The government has awarded 33
active service contract areas to various oil firms to date, whose
combined drilling across the country, however, pales in comparison
with similar activities in the region.
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