This journo has had no trouble picking out the diamonds in the...

This journo has had no trouble picking out the diamonds in the quarterly....

http://business.inquirer.net/money/topstories/view/20100129-250197/Aussie-firm-pursues-work-on-big-Palawan-oil-prospect

Aussie firm pursues work on big Palawan oil prospect


By Amy R. Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:57:00 01/29/2010

Aussie firm pursues work on big Palawan oil prospect

MANILA, Philippines--Australian firm Nido Petroleum Ltd. is set to begin next month the sub-phase 5 of its exploration activities within Service Contract 54B in offshore Palawan to identify and evaluate further prospects outside the Abukay 3D seismic area.

The Abukay area contains the Gindara prospect, which was seen to hold an average of 634 million barrels of unrisked oil-in-place. This particular prospect is also regarded by Nido Petroleum as comparable in scale to Shells Malampaya field.

According to Nido, the sub-phase 5 will run over a six-month period (Feb. 5 to Aug. 4, 2010) and carry a minimum financial expenditure of $150,000.

A 25-percent relinquishment is also required at the end of the sub-phase. The work program strategy for sub-phase 5 is to high-grade the remaining area of SC 54B for further subsurface review and importantly, identify the area of the block to be relinquished, the company explained.

Under the work commitment for SC 54B, Nido is also expected to drill an exploration well by 2011.

Nido holds a 60-percent interest in SC 54Bwhich is the deeper exploration areaand is the field operator, while another Australian firm, Kairiki Energy Ltd., holds the remaining 40 percent.

In the last quarter of 2009, Nido reported that it continued the maturation of the exploration prospect and lead portfolio within the Abukay area. This work includes remapping of the Lapu-Lapu prospects and a number of smaller satellite structures in the vicinity of the large Gindara prospect.

Nido Petroleum earlier said that the Gindara has matured into an outstanding prospect and is now the highest ranked drilling candidate in the companys northwest Palawan exploration portfolio in terms of its excellent risk profile and potential significance.

The SC 54B joint venture already had extensive 2D and 3D seismic acquisition studies conducted from 2006 to 2007.

The company has proceeded to reprocess the 3D survey data to improve certainty on the structures size and the distribution of effective reservoir within the mapped closure.

The new data allowed the joint venture to have a better estimate of potential oil-in-place volumes, thus reservoir risk has been substantially reduced.