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THE PHILIPPINES

Southeast Asia

The 7,107 islands of the Philippines cover a very large offshore area of the Pacific Ocean, South China Sea and Sulu Sea. There is very little onshore production although small amounts of gas have been produced onshore in northern Luzon from the San Antonio field since 1994.

The main area is offshore, from the one productive area, the Palawan basin northwest of Palawan Island. The state is represented by the Oil and Gas Division of the Department of Energy and the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) is an operator.

Petroleum exploration in the Philippines began in 1896 with the Toledo-1 well on Cebu Island but up to 1989 only very small offshore accumulations had been discovered and developed. The first field, Nido, was discovered in offshore Northwest Palawan in 1976, coming onstream in 1979, and a number of small oil fields were subsequently discovered and produced in the 1980s and 1990s, including Matinloc and Galoc (now redeveloped).

In 1989 a relatively large gas field, Camago, was discovered in deep waters off Palawan by Occidental and in 1990, Shell discovered the nearby Malampaya gas field, which together with Camago became by far, the largest discovery, containing around 76 Bcm of gas and 85 mm Bbls of condensate.

Coming onstream in 2001 in 750 to 1,150m of water the Malampaya-Camago complex uses a fixed platform with a concrete gravity substructure installed in 43 m of water tied to 5 subsea wells. Gas is delivered by a 504 km pipeline to three power plants in Batangas on Mindoro Island. Peak output is 5.4 Bcm per year although pipeline capacity is around 6.8 Bcm per year. The platform handles liquids at around 25,000 Bbls per day, which are shuttled to shore by tanker.

Malampaya also has a thin oil rim in which reserves could be around 35 mm Bbls. An extended horizontal well test on Malampaya-10 in 2002 flowed at around 8,000 Bbls per day but with high gas. Other gas discoveries are also present in the neighbourhood. Other exploration campaigns, largely in the Sulu Sea close to the Malaysian border, have generally been unsuccessful.

CAPITAL

 Manila

Population

 89.5 million

Onshore area

(000's sq kms)

300.1

Offshore area

(000's sq kms)

NEW

OIL PEAK YEAR

forecast 2009

 A low-priced and up-to-date oil and gas production and consumption forecast report on this country can be commissioned, including all relevant charts. Contact us for price and contents list.