Aussie firm behind Palawan oil exploration halts trading at ASE

The Australian firm behind the Tindalo-1 well--an oil exploration project in northern Palawan--has asked the Australian Stock Exchange for an immediate trading halt on Friday pending a company announcement on the project. "The trading halt is necessary [we] will be making an announcement regarding the drill stem testing results from the Tindalo-1 well," Nido Petroleum Ltd. said in the disclosure to the Australian stock market on Friday. Nido said it expects the halt to remain in place until the trade opening on Monday next week, but it did not provide any more details or hints on the announcement. On May 30, the first oil flowed from the Tindalo well, which the company expects to produce oil at a rate of 7,000 to 15,000 barrels per day. The Philippines' Department of Energy (DoE) said despite being a small-sized reserve, Tindalo-1 may be profitable should recoverable reserves prove to be in commercial quantity. "The success of [the Tindalo-1 project] will strengthen the Philippine government’s efforts to encourage investments in the energy sector, particularly in oil and gas exploration, leading to energy security for the country," DoE said. Nido operates the project in northwest Palawan with Australian firm Kairiki Energy, Dutch company Trafigura Ventures III B.V., and Canadian firm TG World Energy Corp. The DoE said earlier that "pressure reading, flow rate, and fluid type" would be established soon, hopefully in the first week of June. "Crude oil from the Nido Limestone reservoir will be processed onboard the jack-up rig Aquamarine Driller and will be transferred through a floating hose to the floating storage and offloading vessel, Tove Knutsen," the department said earlier. Nido is conducting the programmed extended well testing (EWT) of Tindalo-1 "to establish the quantity and commerciality of recoverable reserves and determine capability of the reservoir to produce commercially." "Fluid and assay sampling are also being carried out to fully assess the well’s production performance," it said. Tindalo-1 well was discovered in October 2008 but was later plugged as a possible oil producer. The department awarded the project--460 km southwest of Manila--on August 2005 and would expire in August 2012. The project is 80 km southwest of the Malampaya Gas Field, and 12.5 km northeast of the Nido oilfield. Nido is a listed oil and gas exploration and production company with over 29,450 sq km of contiguous exploration and development assets in the northwest Palawan basin. Its core producing asset is the Galoc oil field of which it owns 22.879 percent. Galoc lies within SC 14 in 300 meters of water, some 60 km offshore Palawan which started oil production in October 2008. — GMANews.TV