PNOC-EC to remit P500 million in dividends to government by month's end

MANILA, Philippines - State-owned PNOC-Exploration Corp. will remit about P500 million in dividends to the National Government at the end of the month, the company’s top official said yesterday.

“The declaration of dividends will help lessen the budget deficit,” company chairman Jacinto Paras told reporters.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, PNOC-EC, a unit of state-owned Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), said its board approved the grant of a cash dividend of 25.03 centavos per share from the company’s unrestricted retained earnings as of Dec. 31, 2009.

PNOC-EC’s stocks are 99.78 percent owned by the Philippine government through PNOC. The remaining 0.22 percent are owned by the public.

The dividend will be paid out to all shareholders of record as of Dec. 28, 2009.

PNOC-EC earlier remitted P1.002 billion worth of dividends to the Department of Finance last July. This dividend was taken from the company’s 2008 net income of P3.05 billion, the highest income attained since its inception in 1976.

PNOC-EC attributed its strong income performance last year to the increase in revenues from the Malampaya project and coal operations, brought about by higher gas and coal prices in the world market.

Initially, the company declared P200 million last June at P0.099 per share, of which P199.6 million was paid to the government while P421 thousand was paid to public stockholders.

It declared an additional P802 million in July at P0.401 per share, of which P800 million was paid to the government while P1.69 million paid to public stockholders.

In its early years, PNOC-EC served mainly as a catalyst in petroleum exploration, focusing its activities in frontier onshore areas in Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon and Samar.

In 1994, its three-megawatt San Antonio gas power plant in Echague, Isabela was commissioned, providing electricity to more than 10,000 households. The operation of this plant made PNOC-EC the country’s first producer of indigenous natural gas.

Encouraged by its successes, PNOC-EC started to take bold moves in the 1990s by expanding its operations in the offshore areas of Northern Palawan, Ragay Gulf and offshore Mindoro.

During this period, the company became either a lead operator or a partner in petroleum exploration joint ventures with local and foreign companies.

The company and its partners’ exploration efforts in various petroleum basins eventually led to an oil discovery in Antique (Maniguin-2), a gas discovery in Maguindanao (Tukanakuden-1), two successful gas flows also in Maguindanao (Sultan Barongis 1 and 2), and a well with gas shows in Tarlac (Victoria-3).

At present, PNOC-EC remains at the forefront of the energy industry with business interests in oil and gas exploration and production, natural gas business, coal exploration and production, coal marketing and trading as well as port and warehousing operations.