Tindalo Oil Field, Philippines

The Tindalo oil field is situated in the Northwest Palawan Basin, offshore Philippines, and comes within service contract 54 Block A. The block covers an area of 862km² and is operated by Nido Petroleum Philippines with a 42.4% stake. The other joint venture partners are Yilgarn Petroleum Philippines (30.1%) and Trafigura Ventures III BV (15%) and TG World Energy Corp (12.5%).

The field has reserves of up to 24.5 million barrels of oil, according to the estimate announced in March 2009. The recovery rate factor varies in the range of 35-45%.

The production of oil from the field is expected to start in the second quarter of 2010. The production rate is likely to range between 7,000 and 15,000 bopd.

The project has received all the required approvals from the Philippine Government.

Tindalo oil field development

The Tindalo field was discovered in October 2008. The discovery was made by exploration well Tindalo-1, drilled at water depth of 100m. The drilling intersected an oil column of 124m-144m. The oil was found at Miocene carbonate reservoir. The well was plugged and suspended for production in future.

Further detailed evaluation of reservoir properties by using wireline logs provided an enhanced understanding of porosity and net pay of the reservoir.

The field development plan, consisting of jack-up rig and positioned storage vessel, was approved by joint venture partners in September 2009. The final investment decision for the field development was approved in December 2009.

The field will be re-entered and the production from the suspended Tindalo-1 well will be carried out. An electric submersible pump is also planned to be installed to facilitate continued production rates during the life of the field.

Tindalo oil field infrastructure

The infrastructure at the field includes M/T Tove Knutsen, a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel and production processing system over a jack-up drilling rig. The crude oil processed on the rig will be transferred to the FSO through a floating hose.

The FSO was leased from Knutsen Shuttletanker Pool for six months in February 2010. The FSO is a double hulled oil tanker and has the capacity to store more than 600,000 barrels of oil. The vessel will be placed close to the production facility and will be on station via dynamic positioning systems.

The vessel's positioning system will reduce the possibility of errors in oil transmission and will identify and respond to changing weather conditions for continued production. The vessel can be unplugged for cargo offtake operations. It is expected to arrive in April 2010.

The crude produced from the well will be processed over the deck of a drilling rig. The production processing equipment will also separate gas and water from the oil before transferring it to the vessel.

Initially, the field will not produce substantial water volumes. However, during the later stage of the field's operations, the processing system will be able to treat up to 16,000 barrels of water.

Contracts

The drilling rig contract was given to Vantage Drilling Company in December 2009. The contract for the FSO was awarded to Knutsen Shuttletanker Pool in February 2010.

The contract for production processing equipment was given to Weatherford Asia Pacific in February 2010. The equipment is a modular system and is being assembled in Indonesia. It will be used for the initial well testing programme.

The contract for delivery of a floating hose has been awarded to Sigma Offshore in March 2010. The contract is valued at $1.2m.

Drilling rig

The drilling rig Aquamarine Driller is owned by Vantage Drilling. It is a jack-up rig built at Keppel shipyard in 2009. It has maximum production capacity of 20,000 barrels of oil a day. The rig can operate at maximum depth of 375ft under water and can drill to a maximum depth of 30,000ft. It can accommodate 120 people.