Israeli energy firm eyes Palawan exploration

• Source: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/03/11/israeli-energy-firm-eyes-palawan-exploration/
• Monday, March 11, 2019

By Lenie Lectura

ISRAELI firm Ratio Petroleum Ltd. wants to partner with Philippine National Oil Company-Explo-ration Corp. (PNOC-EC) to jointly explore possible petroleum reserves in the east Palawan basin.

Ratio Petroleum was awarded Service Contract (SC) No. 76 covering Area 4 of Eastern Palawan, as part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) fifth Philippine Energy Contracting Round (PECR), launched in May 2014.

SC 76 spans 416,000 hectares across the east Palawan basin for potential oil and gas resources. The seven-year exploration project is expected to cost $34.35 million, which will be used for studies, data gathering and drilling activities over the initial seven-year contract period.

DOE Undersecretary Donato Marcos said Ratio Petroleum proposed to expand the area in which exploration activities will be conducted and enter into a farm-in agreement with PNOC-EC.

“They have expressed interest in nominating for the expansion of SC 76 to get a maximum area of 1.5 million hectares, farming in with PNOC-EC and also looking at joint nomination with EC. They have expressed serious interest,” said Marcos.

DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi said representatives of Ration Petroleum are in the country to discuss their plans. “Ratio people are in town since Monday,” said Cusi last week.

There are currently 23 active petroleum service contracts in the Philippines with the following developers: Shell Philippines Exploration, Total E&P, PNOC-EC, Nido Petroleum, Philodrill, PXP Energy and Galoc Production Company.

The largest and most successful natural gas industrial project in Philippine history is the Malampaya Deep Water Gas-to-Power Project.

Ratio Petroleum was established in 1992 and has a number of large-scale operations at the Levant basin in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Israel, as well as offshore operations in the Republic of Malta and the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. 19 firms

Meanwhile, Marcos said the agency has received firm interests from nine firms to explore pre-determined areas for possible oil and gas reserve, while 10 firms have nominated their respective areas of interest under the Philippine Conventional Energy Contracting Program (PCECP), a hybrid of PECR.

The DOE is aggressively pursuing the implementation of the PCECP so the country could establish a strong “Explore, Explore, Explore” program.

He did not identify the 19 interested firms.

Under the PCECP, there are two modes of application potential investors may pursue.

First, interested parties may wish to bid on the 14 Pre-Determined Areas identified by the DOE (one in Cagayan, three in East Palawan, three in Sulu Sea, two in Agusan-Davao, one in Cotabato and four in West Luzon). The application period is 180 days, and was officially opened last November 22.

Alternatively, the applicants could also nominate and publish other areas of interest. In this mode, applications could be submitted at any time of the year, and would be subjected to a 60-day challenge period.

All accepted applications shall be evaluated by the DOE Centralized Review and Evaluation Committee based on the criteria pursuant to Department Circular No. DC2017-12-0017.