Malampaya gas flowing soon

Shell Philippines Exploration (SPEC), a member of the Shell Group, expects to deliver natural gas from its offshore Malampaya exploration area as early as June this year, a company official said yesterday.

SPEX managing director David Greer said that with this development, they hope to start commercial operations of natural gas earlier than the January 2002 target.

Greer said they are ahead of schedule since they projected that they would complete the development work in the exploration site by end of 2001.

SPEX is one of the operators of the Malampaya gas fields with 45- percent equity. The remaining stake is owned by Texaco and Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), with 45 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

So far, Greer said they are 80- percent complete as of end-2000, better than the 77 percent to 78- percent target for the period, and is likely to have the first flow of natural gas in the Malampaya field by middle of this year.

"We are very much on track. We will be able to bring up gas in June 2001. We will start selling gas to the power plants in October 2001," he said.

Greer, however, said they may only go ahead with full commercial operations by early next year. This means, the company will sell on a retail basis in the first months of 2002.

The Department of Energy earlier estimated that SPEX would be able to produce between 20,000 to 25,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) when it conducts an extended production of an oil well in the Malampaya field. By January 2002, the production volume is seen to increase to between 50,000 to 55,000 BOPD.

Last year, SPEX installed a concrete gravity structure, the lower part of the Malampaya platform constructed by a consortium of companies that included John Holland, Arup Energy and Van Oord ACZ.

Energy Secretary Mario V. Tiaoqui earlier urged oil firms to speed up the development and exploration of new oil fields as well as other sources of energy to give consumers other options amidst volatile crude oil prices in the world market.

Tiaoqui even committed to give incentives to those who will deal with oil and gas explorations.

The emphasis on the exploration and exploitation of natural gas and geothermal sources was magnified with the success of the Malampaya gas fields in northern Palawan. The Malampaya field, situated off the western-island of Palawan, has proven reserves of 2.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It has also an estimated 120 million barrels of condensate.

It contains an estimated 200 million barrels of oil, of which some 35 to 50 million barrels can be recovered.