inq7.net: Shell's consortium eyes Palawan oil contract: " A CONSORTIUM composed of Shell Philippines Exploration BV, South China Resources Inc. and the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Corp. (Kufpec) has applied for a contract to explore for oil and gas in northeast Palawan province" (ShellNews.net) 11 March 05
Mar. 11, 2005
Abigail L. Ho
Inquirer News Service
A CONSORTIUM composed of Shell Philippines Exploration BV, South China Resources Inc. and the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Corp. (Kufpec) has applied for a contract to explore for oil and gas in northeast Palawan province, Energy Secretary Vincent Perez said Thursday.
Perez confirmed receipt of the application to convert South China Resources' Geophysical Survey and Exploration Contract 99 over northeast Palawan into a service contract.
The contract will cover an area of 13,320 square kilometers and involve drilling of additional wells to test the field's potential to produce oil or gas, Perez said.
The service contract application was the first for the Sulu Sea side of Palawan, he said.
Existing service contracts cover areas on the other side of the western island in the central Philippines, near the South China Sea.
Perez said the application was significant as it was the second project of Shell Philippines Exploration after Service Contract No. 38, which covers the Malampaya Deep Water Gas-to-Power Project, also in Palawan.
"This could mean that they're [Shell group] coming back again," Perez told reporters. "This contract is big in the sense that the consortium has a Middle Eastern partner."
South China Resources last year converted GSEC 99 into a service contract.
In the first exploration phase covering 20 months, the consortium plans to acquire and process 450 square kilometers of 3D seismic data and 1,000 line-kilometers of 2D seismic data, Ismael Ocampo, head of the oil and gas division of the Department of Energy, said in a presentation posted on the department's website.
After the data acquisition, the group will evaluate the block and proceed with the drilling of an exploration or appraisal well in the succeeding phases of the contract.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the energy department to achieve 60-percent energy self-sufficiency for the Philippines by 2010.
To help reach this goal, the department and other key energy-related agencies of the government are coming up with ways to exploit the country's indigenous energy resources, including oil and gas.
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