Nido Petroleum deploys drilling rig for NW Palawan petroleum block

Australian firm Nido Petroleum Ltd. has started deploying its drillship “Deepsea Metro 1” for its exploration activity at the Northwest Palawan petroleum basin that is under Service Contract 14C with the Philippine government.

The company noted that it commenced mobilization of the drillship from Labuan, Malaysia “to the Galoc-7 /7ST well location in Block C1” offshore Palawan.

Drilling operations at the block, according to Nido Petroleum, had been targeted to start March 31 this year.

The Australian operator-firm’s drilling announcement was complemented by local interest-holder PXP Energy Corporation in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange. PXP Energy holds total direct and indirect interest of 77.5 percent in the service contract.

Nido Petroleum previously noted that it intends to continually “evaluate further exploration, appraisal and incremental development opportunities at the Galoc oil field and in the SC14-C1 contract area.”

The contract area is situated approximately 70 kilometers west of Culion island in a water depth of about 320 meters.

It was further indicated that the depth of the reservoir is at 1,200 to 2,200 meters with assessed 57 plus meters of gross oil column, “consisting of early oil Miocene turbidite sandstone with 16 plus-percent average reservoir porosity.”

Prospective crude production at the block, it was noted, could be marketed to buyers in the southeast and north Asian regions.

Nido Petroleum has already successfully developed other petroleum blocks offshore Palawan that had shored up the country’s oil production in the past years.

If this new block merits commercial development, the country could have additional oil source either for domestic use or as dollar-earner when sold to other markets.