Galoc sells output to South Korea oil refiners

MANILA, Philippines - Galoc Production Co. (GPC) has sold its recent oil produce to GS Caltex Corp., one of the leading oil refiners in South Korea.

GPC sources said it delivered some 300,000 barrels of crude produced from the Galoc oil field in offshore Northwest Palawan basin to GS Caltex early last week.

“There was a cargo offloading last Monday intended for Korea. Buyer is Caltex,” the source ssaid.

The first oil produced from the field was sold by GPC to Petron Corp. last year.

Galoc, which started production in October 2008, has an initial oil estimate reserves of about 10 million barrels.

The oil field, operated by GPC which controls a 58.29 percent stake, was the country’s first oil development project after so many years.

GPC is a joint venture between the Vitol Group and Otto Energy Ltd. Other partners in the project are Nido Petroleum Ltd, Oriental Petroleum and Minerals Corp./Linapacan Oil Gas & Power Corp., The Philodrill Corp., Forum Energy Philippines Corp., Alcorn Gold Resources Corp. and PetroEnergy Resources Corp.

The company had temporarily stopped production in late December due to poor weather conditions but when it resumed operations in February, two shipments in March and April of 207,764 barrels and 343,430 barrels, respectively, have been offloaded and delivered to buyers in Korea and Japan.

GPC had sold and delivered over 400,000 barrels of crude to Korea, 300,000 barrels to Thailand and 300,000 barrels to local refiner Petron last year before the temporary shutdown in December 2008.

The company also signed supply agreements for the forward sale of two shipments totaling some 650,000 barrels with two different buyers in Korea.

According to GPC, the first schedule to the same customer was done in early May and the second one this month.