Signaling the start of the Philippines’ first oil field development in 15 years, the Galoc-3 and Galoc-4 wells are being drilled using a ‘batch’ approach.
This involves drilling the top-hole sections for each well, which Nido said saved time and costs over a conventional drilling program.
Spudded 10 days ago, the Galoc-3 well has had the first two casing strings set to a total depth of 998m.
The rig was then moved 20m to the Galoc-4 well site, where the conductor has now been set to a depth of 363m and drilling is continuing in a 17.5-inch hole.
Once finished, the rig will drill a pilot hole from the Galoc-4 top-hole location to gather fluid samples and minimize formation top uncertainty at Galoc-3.
The Galoc-3 and Galoc-4 development wells are targeting 23.5 million barrels of proved and probable (2P) reserves as certified by Gaffney, Cline and Associates.
These deviated horizontal wells are aimed at penetrating 1600m of the oil-bearing sandstone reservoir at depths of around 2000m.
Production will be coursed through a floating storage and offloading facility.
Nido, which has a 23% stake in Galoc, will be entitled to about 4000 barrels of oil per day once production starts in the first quarter of 2008.
Other members of the consortium are operator Galoc Production, Alcorn Gold Resources, Forum Energy, Oriental Petroleum, PetroEnergy Resources and Philodrill, with Galoc Production as operator.
