Nido Petroleum hires rig for drilling project

MANILA, Philippines - Australian exploration firm Nido Petroleum Ltd. has commissioned a rig called “Aquamarine Driller” for a planned oil drilling activity at its Tindalo prospects in the second quarter of 2010.

In a statement submitted to the Australian Stock Exchange, Nido said their group, which is exploring the Service Contract 54 A, obtained the services of Vantage Drilling’s jack-up drilling rig Aquamarine Driller. A jack up rig is a mobile platform that can be towed to any location.

Nido is an oil and gas exploration and production company with over 29,450 sq km of contiguous exploration and development assets in the northwest Palawan basin

It also has a 60-percent interests in SC 54B and a 50-percent interest in SC 58. Nido has a 50 percent non-operated interest in SC 63.

Nido’s core producing asset is the Galoc oil field of which Nido has a 22.879 percent non-operated interest. Galoc lies within SC 14 in 300 meters of water, some 60 km offshore Palawan which started oil production in October 2008.

According to Nido, letters of intent (LOI) have been issued to preferred contractors for the provision of the floating storage and offloading vessel.

Same LOIs have also been dispensed for the production equipment to be used for processing the oil at Tindalo in northwest Palawan.

With an investment of $20 million, Nido expects to draw first oil from the Tindalo oil field at around 7,000 to 15,000 barrels per day.

Nido estimated that the Tindalo field has likely recoverable oil volumes of 5.1 million barrels (or a range of 1.5 million to 9.1 million barrels).

“We have now secured the major component of the development hardware, the jack-up rig that will complete and produce Tindalo-1. Having selected our other major contractors via LOIs, in the coming weeks we expect to finalize the contracting for the remainder of the key equipment for the project, including the FSO,” Nido deputy managing director Joanne Williams said.