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About Nido
Nido Petroleum Ltd is an oil and gas explorer and producer with production, development and exploration assets in the Palawan Basin, Philippines.
History
Nido Petroleum’s predecessor, Sydney Oil Company Drilling and Exploration Trust (SOCDET), made its first investment in the north-west Palawan Basin in the Philippines in February 1995. Nido ‘inherited’ interests in Service Contract 14 (SC14) (including the Nido and Matinloc oil production assets and the Galoc oil field) when SOCDET incorporated as Nido Petroleum Ltd in July 1999.
Since that initial entry Nido has become the second largest oil and gas exploration acreage holder in the Philippines.
Nido is headquartered in Perth, Western Australia and has offices in Manila, the Philippines. Nido’s Managing Director is Mr. David Whitby and Chairman is Mr. Gregor Dixon.
Strategy
Nido’s strategy has been to acquire a large, contiguous exploration acreage position in the Palawan Basin to enable it to develop a statistically significant exploration drilling programme. To this end Nido has acquired working interests in Service Contracts 54, 58 and 63. These Service Contracts increased Nido’s acreage position in the Philippines to over 3 million hectares.
In late-2006 and early-2006 Nido obtained encouraging new seismic data from SC54 and 58. This new data, in conjunction with Nido’s existing seismic database, identified over 100 structures across Nido’s exploration permits in a range of play types and water depths. Nido is optimistic about the preliminary results and is continuing to mature these key leads. This work will include the acquisition in the third quarter of 2007 of additional 3D seismic data in SC54 and SC58.
Preliminary technical work has commenced on the evaluation of SC63 by Operator, PNOC Exploration Corporation (PNOC-EC). Although this work is at an early stage, PNOC-EC and Nido are seeking to accelerate the subsurface evaluation of SC63, which contains the Aboabo-1 gas discovery located in the southern sector of the block.
Assets
Nido’s core development asset is the Galoc oil field. Galoc lies within SC14 in 300 metres of water, some 60 km offshore of Palawan Island. The Galoc reservoir is some 2,200 metres below the sea floor and has certified Proven & Probable (2P) reserves of some 23.5 million barrels of oil.
A phased development of this field is underway by a Joint Venture led by Nido and the field Operator, the Galoc Production Company. Phase 1 of the development will include the drilling of two horizontal production wells and subsea tie-back to the Floating Production, Storage and Offtake vessel ‘Rubicon Intrepid’ moored nearby. First production is forecast for early-2008 and the field is expected to produce at an initial rate of between 17,500–22,000 barrels of oil per day. This will almost double Philippines national oil production.