Philippine upstream oil company, PetroEnergy Resources Corp. (PERC), is partnering with another consortium to dig seven oil wells in Gabon. Five of these wells will be for production while the other two will be for exploration.
With the addition of these planned wells, the group plans to increase its daily production at the Etame site in Gabon to 30,000 barrels of oil a day.
According to PetroEnergy Vice president Francisco G. Delfin Jr., the company would shell out its investment portion this year and the next through its 2.525-percent working interest in the Etame Marin Production Sharing Contract. PERC owns 2.525 percent of the Etame petroleum service contract in Gabon, West Africa. Vaalco Energy operates the field along with other consortium Sojitz Etame Ltd., PanOcean Energy Gabon Corp. Sasol Petroleum West Africa Ltd. and Energy Africa Gabon SA .
“We are very pleased and excited about the Gabon operations because it provides constant revenues. Our revenue stream from Gabon provides us with funds to do more ventures in the Philippines and invest in renewable energy,” Delfin stated.
The Gabon project currently produces 20,000 barrels daily. Since 2002, production in the Gabon site has reached 65 million barrels and there is still 40 million barrels of oil reserves that can be produced until 2021.
“Right now, our intention is to increase to 30,000 barrels of oil per day from 20,000 barrels. To do that, we are investing money in drilling more wells. We will be drilling seven more wells. Five for production and two for exploration,” he said.
Although Delfin did not reveal PetroEnergy investment share in the drilling activities, he disclosed that its partner will invest at least $20 million for each well, a total of $140 million for all the planned seven wells.
PetroEnergy is a subsidiary of PetroGreen Energy Corp. It has a sixty-five percent stake in the joint venture vehicle called Maibarara Geothermal Inc., which is developing a P2.8-billion geothermal power plant in Mt. Makiling.
In Philippines, PERC holds several interests in petroleum contracts including 16.7 percent stake in Service Contract (SC) 6A covering Northwest Palawan, 4.14 percent of SC 14C also in Northwest Palawan, 0.4 percent in SC 47 located in Offshore Mindoro and 4.012 percent in SC 51 at the East Visayan Sea.
