Gindara field in Palawan likely bigger than Malampaya, says Nido Petroleum

MANILA, Philippines - Australian firm Nido Petroleum Ltd. (Nido) said it believes its Service Contract 54 or the Gindara prospect in Northwest Palawan has potential reserves bigger than the existing Malampaya gas project in the same area.  

Jon Pattillo, Nido’s head of exploration, told the Australian Stock Exchange that “Gindara has matured into an outstanding prospect and is now the highest ranked drilling candidate in Nido’s NW (Northwest) Palawan exploration portfolio in terms of its excellent risk profile and potential significance to the company.”

“The prospect is comparable in scale to Shell’s Malampaya field, 30 kilometers to the north, but located in only 320 meters of water and close to the joint ventures recent discoveries at Tindalo and Yakal in adjacent SC 54 Block A,” Pattillo said.

According to Pattillo, the company is now intensifying its drilling operations in the site to harness its vast potential at the soonest possible time.

Nido has reprocessed seismic data from SC 54B and it showed “improved subsurface imaging and markedly reduced prospect risk.”

 “Unrisked mean oil in-place (OIP) volumes have increased from 470 to 634 million barrels with an unrisked upside of approximately one billion barrels,” he said.

Nido Petroleum is an oil and gas company with over 2.94 million hectares of exploration and development assets in the Northwest Palawan basin.

Nido’s core production asset includes a 22.879 percent interest in the Galoc oil field. Galoc lies within SC14 in 300 meters of water, some 60 km offshore of Palawan. The Galoc reservoir is some 2,200 meters below the sea floor and first production commenced in October 2008.

Just as Galoc started flowing oil, Nido completed drilling in the neighboring exploration assets (SC 54A) resulting in two new oil discoveries at Yakal and Tindalo, a 100-percent strike rate that punctuates a drought of over 14 years in the Philippines. Nido intends to fasttrack the Tindalo development, targeting its first oil by early 2010.

Nido earlier accepted the farm-in offer of another Australian firm Yilgarn Gold Ltd., a publicly-listed mineral exploration company which will hold 40 percent of SC 54.