The Department of Energy (DOE) received a nomination for Area 4 located in the East Palawan Basin, under the Philippines Conventional Energy Contracting Program (PCECP), in late August 2019.  Block description  Nominated Area 4 (NA4) covers an area of 9,320 sq km at water depths between 5 m and 2,000 m. The area is adjacent to the SC 76, which was officially awarded to Ratio Petroleum on 17 October 2018, under Philippines Energy Contracting Round V (PECR V). Upon approval of the nomination, the nominating party for Area 4 had published its application in local newspapers on 28 August 2019. The deadline for document submission is on 28 October 2019.  A large portion of NA4 was offered during PECR 2005 (Area 2) and First Contracting Round 2003 (0911A, 09119B, 09120A). Area 2 received two bids, however no preferred bidder was selected.  Only one well was drilled by Shell in 2010. Silangan 1 was plugged and abandoned with gas shows. The area is covered by 2D seismic data from multiple surveys, including Mialara 2D Broadband Survey (2014).  Petroleum System  Petroleum system in the East Palawan Basin is unproven. Gas shows and traces of dead oil suggest gas and oil-prone system is present.  Potential reservoir targets include Lower to Middle Miocene carbonates and sandstones with possible source of oil-prone from the Upper Oligocene to Lower Miocene deep marine claystones. Intraformational Middle Miocene to Pliocene fine clastics provides effective seals in the adjacent Sulu Sea region. Play types identified in the block including anticlines, wrench-fault related folds, listric fault associated closures, stratigraphic pinch-outs against fault blocks and carbonate build-ups on paleo-highs.  The main risk from an exploration viewpoint is hydrocarbon generation.  Background Information  Mialara 2D Broadband Survey  The Mialara 2D multi-client survey, commenced on 8 September 2014, was conducted using the âAquila Explorerâ M/V by Searcher Seismic. Around 5,000 km data over a 10 km by 10 km grid was acquired in offshore East Palawan Basin, covering three bidding blocks (Areas 4, 5 and 6) offered under the PECR V and in-filled the previous Pala-Sulu multi-client survey in 2012. The acquisition was completed on 27 October 2014. The survey provided long offset, broadband data. The previous Pala-Sulu Seismic Survey was conducted to provide a consistent regional overview between the basins to create a uniform seismo-stratigraphic framework. It has been specifically designed to meet the challenging tectonic framework of the petroleum basins and to improve the imaging of the lower sedimentary sections and the Basement.   East Palawan Basin  East Palawan is a frontier basin and its full hydrocarbon potential remains largely untested. Out of the eight wildcat wells drilled in the Philippine sector of the East Palawan Basin, only two revealed minor gas shows and one traces of dead oil. DOE reported that the estimated volume of total risked recoverable resources excluding the unmapped resources in East Palawan Basin is around 448 MMbo and 895 Bcfg.  The East Palawan Basin is an elongated basin situated offshore north-eastern Sabah. Trending southwest-northeast, it covers an area of 100,200 sq km. The basin comprises a platform area in the west and an offshore basin in the east. The East Palawan Basin lies almost entirely in the Philippines territorial waters of the Sulu Sea. The basin has been only partially explored to date, and its full hydrocarbon potential remains largely untested. The deep water part of the basin is considered to be potentially prospective for gas.   Potential hydrocarbon kitchen areas in the East Palawan Basin are large Paleogene graben-like sub-basins with a pre-Middle Miocene sediment thickness in excess of 5 km. An Upper Oligocene to Lower Miocene source facies, within the Paleogene graben-fills, would have reached the oil window, with the deepest horizons possibly being depressed into the gas window, and beyond, during subsequent burial.  The source rock potential of the East Palawan Basin is evidenced by dead oil encountered in the Dumaran 1/1A and gas shows in the Sulu Sea A-1 wells. A number of hydrocarbon seepages have also been recorded in the basin and compelling direct hydrocarbon indicators (DHIs) are seen on the East Palawan seismic data.
Philippines, not found