Nido starts to remedy water problem at Tidalo oil well

Perth, Australia-based Nido Petroleum Ltd. started a program for the Tindalo oil well in northwest Palawan to remedy the presence of water affecting its production. The operator of service contract 54A covering the oilfield in Palawan told the Australian Stock Exchange on Tuesday that "intervention and remediation program" started at the Tindalo oil field that would take 10 to 17 days to complete. "The support vessel m/v Pacific Ariki arrived at the Tindalo location on Sept. 5, with the items necessary for the well intervention and equipment and materials being transferred from the support vessel to the rig," said Joanne Williams, deputy-managing director of Nido Petroleum. "The Tindalo-1 well has now been shut-in and re-entry operations have commenced," Williams said. Part of the program is "diagnostic logging" to find out the best approach to fix the water contamination, the company said. Nido Petroleum earlier said that water was 70 to 80 percent of liquid output on top of 30 to 20 percent oil. The program aims to stabilize oil production at Tindalo field, which in July was producing 16,000 to 18,000 barrels per day (bpd) using an electric submersible pump. The well is currently producing about 2,000 bpd. Williams said that some 196,000 barrels of oil are now in tanks of the storage and offloading vessel. The company will deliver 200,000 to 230,000 barrels to a buyer in South Korea this month, Nido Petroleum said. The Tindalo field, discovered in October 2008 holds 1.5 million to 9.1 million barrels of oil. Nido Petroleum has a 42.4 percent stake in service contract 54A. Its joint venture partners are Kairiki Energy Ltd. (30.1 percent), TG World Energy Corp. (12.5 percent) and Trafigura Ventures III B.V. (15.1 percent). —VS, GMANews.TV