Philodrill earnings slump on Galoc shutdown

MANILA, Philippines - Listed upstream oil firm Philodrill Corp. saw a 77 percent decline in profit in the nine months to September with the shutdown of its oil field early this year.

In its financial report, Philodrill said its net income sank to P212.7 million from P957 million a year ago as revenues fell 59 percent to P560.3 million.

“The decrease was mainly brought about by the absence of production from the Galoc oil field in the first quarter of 2012,” Philodrill said.

In November, Galoc Production Co. (GPC) temporarily stopped operations at the oil field to give way for upgrades.  The oilfield resumed commercial operations on April 2.

GPC, which holds 58.29 percent of Service Contract (SC) 14C, is jointly owned by the Vitol Group and Otto Energy Ltd. Other stakeholders in SC 14C include Oriental Petroleum and its unit Linapacan Oil Gas & Power Corp. (7.57 percent), Philodrill (7.03 percent), Forum Energy Corp. (2.27 percent), Alcorn Gold (1.53 percent) and PetroEnergy (1.03 percent).

Gross output slipped to 1.135 million barrels from 1.97 million barrels a year ago.

The company also recorded a slight drop in average price per barrel at $113.15 as of end-September from $113.35 per barrel in the same period last year.

The company sourced its oil primarily from Galoc gas field, with Nido, Matinloc, North Matinloc contributing marginally.

Total costs and expenses, however, decreased to P314.7 million from P385.9 million last year as operating expenses declined by a quarter.

Philodrill also incurred a P25.1-million foreign exchange loss, reversing the P11 million gain last year.

Philodrill was incorporated in 1969 to engage in oil, gas and mineral exploration and development. In 1989, it changed its primary purpose to that of a diversified holding company while retaining petroleum and mineral exploration and development as one of its secondary purposes.

Active petroleum projects of the company include the production and exploration areas in offshore Palawan and South Sulu Sea and onshore Mindoro.