PNOC to tap Thailand’s PTT as partner for exploration projects

Publicly-listed PNOC-Exploration Corp. (EC) plans to tap PTT Public Co. Ltd of Thailand as its partner for various onshore and offshore exploration projects.

"They would still have to look at what they can explore and when they find something interesting they may farm in, we’ve only started the talks now and they’ve only seen the initial data," EC president Rufino Bomasang said.

Bomasang said EC, the oil and gas exploration arm of the Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), will take PTT to exploration areas in Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon and Northwest Palawan.

According to Bomasang, they initially plan to tap PTT as joint venture partner for offshore Mindoro (Cherry and Tablas exploration areas) but this contract was already given to Petronas of Malaysia.

Bomasang said PTT could also join the public contracting round-I (PCR-I) program of the Department of Energy (DOE), which offers at least 46 exploration blocks in the Sulu Sea.

"They can join through tie-ups with the winning bidders for PCR-1. But even if they tie-up with winning bidder, we can still work with them together with the winning bidder. As you know, in any consortia you’re not limiting it to two, it can be three or more," he said.

The Energy Minister of Thailand and top officials of PTT recently had a two-day visit to the Philippines to firm up the two countries’ bilateral cooperation in the energy sector.

Included in the talks were the possible upstream and downstream oil and gas activities that the two countries can explore.

In the upstream sector, Thailand has expressed keen interest in cooperating with EC in exploration activities.

Thailand, which has extensive knowledge in the gas industry, has also shown interest in participating in the development of the Philippines‚ downstream natural gas sector, in particular in the natural gas distribution pipeline networks to support the thrust of the Philippines for the expanded utilization of this resource to other sectors such as transport, commercial and ultimately the household sectors.

Both countries have plans to improve and harmonize fuel quality to support calls for supply security in the region.