Pitkin Petroleum of US to develop Mindoro-Cuyo Basin

MANILA, Philippines - US-based Pitkin Petroleum Ltd. expects to sign an exploration contract with the Department of Energy (DOE) within the week for the development of the Mindoro-Cuyo Basin Block 2 under the Philippine Energy Contracting Round of 2006.

Early this year, the DOE recommended the awarding of contracts to seven petroleum exploration firms, including Pitkin.

The six other firms expected to sign with the DOE this year are: Miocene Mining and Energy Corp. for the Cagayan Block, Polyard Petroleum International Co. Ltd. for the Central Luzon Basin, Burgundy Global Exploration Corp. for East Palawan Blocks 1 and 2, Norasian Energy Ltd. for the Visayan Basin and Helios Petroleum and Gas Corp. for the Agusan-Davao Basin. 

Energy Undersecretary Ramon Oca said Pitkin’s contract involves the exploration of oil and gas reserves in Block 2 of Area 4 of the Mindoro-Cuyo basin which covers1.164 million hectares.

“The signing of the Pitkin service contract is expected to give another boost to the country’s oil exploration efforts. Because Pitkin is a foreign company, its application was thoroughly studied and reviewed,” Oca said.

Based on the work program, Pitkin will spend an initial $7 million for the development of the Mindoro-Cuyo Basin.

Initial data indicated that the Mindoro-Cuyo basin, located 200 to 1,000 meters offshore, is estimated to contain 832 million barrels of oil, including a discovered resource of 25 million barrels of oil.

Aside from Pitkin, Oca said they are set to award several coal exploration contracts anytime soon.

Pitkin has been aggressively taking part in the country’s upstream exploration industry. It recently took a 58.3- percent stake in Service Contract 14 covering West Linapacan in offshore Palawan. West Linapacan A was discovered in the early 1990s, and following the drilling and completion of three vertical subsea wells, a floating production, storage and offloading-style development was employed to produce the field from 1992 through early 1996.

The West Linapacan A field has been shut down for over 12 years and will most likely have returned to near its pre-production state.