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Gindara oil prospect drilling to start
By Euan Paulo C. A?oide nuevo, Reporter

AMID near-record international oil prices, an Australian company plans to drill the Philippines? Gindara petroleum prospect in offshore Northwest Palwan Basin in two months.

In a presentation, Jocot de Dios, Nido Petroleum Ltd. president, said the company and its consortium partners aim to drill the petroleum

block between April and May.
?Work has progressed at fever pitch with the Gindara drilling campaign,? he added.

Covered by Service Contract (SC) 54B, Gindara lies approximately 50 kilometers south of the country?s largest natural gas field, the Malampaya, which has estimated recoverable petroleum resources of 600 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Gindara is projected to hold up to a billion barrels of petroleum reserves.

Ramon Oca, Department of Energy assistant secretary, earlier said that Gindara is one of two petroleum wells scheduled for drilling within the first half of this year.

For the entire year, around ?four to five exploration wells? have been lined up across the country for drilling, he said.

The government is relying on the private sector to develop indigenous petroleum resources. The country is a net importer of oil with local production accounting for less than 10 percent of domestic demand.

Besides Nido, which has a 33-percent stake in the project, SC 54B consortium members include Australia?s Kairiki Energy Ltd. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc?s exploration unit, Shell Petroleum Exploration BV (SPEX). The latter two have 22 and 45 percent stakes in the petroleum block.

SPEX earlier bought into SC 54B by agreeing to shoulder 75 percent of the Gindara-1 exploration well cost up to a maximum of $24 million. The Shell unit also would pay $2.5 million towards past seismic costs, among others.

SPEX operates the nearby Malampaya field in SC 38, the largest natural gas discovery made in the Philippines to date.