ExxonMobil may have hit paydirt in Sulu Sea Senior executives of...

ExxonMobil may have hit paydirt in Sulu Sea

Senior executives of ExxonMobil Corp., the world’s largest oil exploration company, are in a frenzy lately, lining up several activities, presumably to call attention to its Sulu Sea oil exploration.

ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Philippines B.V., the Philippine unit of ExxonMobil, has invited select print and television journalists and two energy officials for a tour of its drilling operations in Service Contract No. 56 in the so-called Sandakan Basin in the vast Sulu Sea, near the Borneo border.

The grapevine said ExxonMobil was chartering two planes to ferry company officials and guests led by Energy Secretary Angelo “Angie” Reyes and Energy Undersecretary Ramon Oca to Sandakan, the second-largest city in Sabah, East Malaysia, on the northeastern coast of Borneo.

The planes will leave Manila at four o’clock in the morning of Nov. 29 and land some two hours later at Sandakan, where helicopters are waiting to transport officials and guests to Seadrill West Aquarius oil drilling rig.

ExxonMobil Exploration managing director Ian Fischer and public and government affairs adviser Jonathan Lew will lead company executives during the tour of Seadrill West Aquarius, which is one hectare big. Reyes, Oca and ExxonMobil executives will fly back to Manila later in the night for the one-day tour.

Unfortunately, the invited print and television journalists declined the invitation, prompting ExxonMobil officials to schedule a media briefing on Dec. 2. A source said ExxonMobil would apprise Manila-based journalists on the company’s energy outlook, including initial results of the Sulu Sea oil drilling.

New oil strike?

Officials of ExxonMobil and the Energy Department are keeping mum on the real purpose of the weekend activity. The hush-hush tour and the ensuing media briefing on Dec. 2 have raised suspicion that ExxonMobil will officially announce an important development in the Sulu Sea drilling.

ExxonMobil in early October mobilized three ships and a helicopter to tow the one-hectare Seadrill West Aquarius oil rig from Indonesia to South Sulu Sea, where it hopes to find a large oil reserve.

The company was ready to invest $100 million to drill one well, called Dabakan-1, in the service contract area. ExxonMobil is operator of the 862,000-hectare exploration area in Sulu Sea, which was earlier awarded to a consortium of Mitra Energy Ltd. and BHP Billiton International Exploration Pty. Ltd. ExxonMobil owns a 50-percent stake in the contract while Mitra and BHP share 25 percent each.

The company on Oct. 10 started drilling on about 3,000 meters of rock below 1,829 meters of water, or a total depth of close to 5,000 meters, making it the deepest water depth ever drilled in the Philippines. A source said the drilling could take 60 to 90 days but an energy official confirmed that ExxonMobil hoped to finish the operation by the end of November.

The Energy Department has withheld results of the daily drilling activities on Dabakan-1 well but ExxonMobil’s engineers and technical people by now will have a fair idea about the outcome of the Sulu Sea operations.

Reyes and ExxonMobil officials themselves were bullish on the prospect of the Sulu Sea drilling after reports of successful oil explorations in the area near Borneo. A confident Fischer earlier told the media that a successful exploration in the area could make the Philippines self-sufficient in oil for seven years.

The ExxonMobil executive said the company might drill another well, depending on the results of Dabakan-1 well drilling, and spend another $100 million.

Reyes was more optimistic. He said the drilling could lead to the discovery of 750 million to 1 billion barrels of oil, or enough to supply the total oil requirements of the Philippines over the next seven years.

New frontier

A major oil discovery in Sulu Sea will open a new frontier in Philippine oil exploration. Previous oil strikes were confined in northwest Palawan, starting with the Nido oil field in the 1970s. It will also become the most significant discovery after Shell Exploration Philippines struck natural gas in Malampaya, also off northwest Palawan.

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