PNOC-EDC to drill more wells in Victoria, Tarlac

The Philippine National Oil Co.-Energy Development Corp. (PNOC-EDC) plans to drill more wells in Victoria, Tarlac, a company official said.

"We will be doing more tests and we will finish the seismic survey. After that we will probably look for new targets," PNOC-EDC vice president for operations Sam Javellana said.

Javellana said they will finish drilling Victoria 3 before proceeding with more drillings in the area.

"There maybe larger reserves somewhere else. The Victoria 3 drilling is just to determine the gas in that well," he said, adding that the seismic test, would be finished by June this year.

PNOC-EDC president Sergio Apostol said it would take three to four months to complete a seismic survey of Victoria, Tarlac, where natural gas had been flowing since Feb. 8 this year.

He said just like the Malampaya Deep Water to Gas Power Project, there is a need for more drillings to look for more potential gas and oil wells. "Malampaya had many wells," he said.

The Victoria drilling project, which is part of geophysical survey exploration contract No. 75, was drilled to a total depth of 9,000 feet and has been flowing gas for several days now.

The total volume of gas reserves would be determined after a series of evaluation tests and further drilling activities are completed by PNOC-EDC and PNOC-Exploration Corp. Both firms aim to explore natural gas reserves estimated at 300 billion cubic feet which can fire up a 300-megawatt power plant.

PNOC-EDC, which was established in 1976, deals with exploration and development of geothermal energy sources in the country.

To date, it operates more than nine geothermal steamfields with an aggregate capacity of 1,149 megawatts accounting for about 60 percent of the country’s total installed geothermal capacity. – Donnabelle Gatdula