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MANILA - The Department of Energy is in talks with foreign firms that can help identify petroleum resources across the country.
Undersecretary Jose M. Layug Jr. said the department is reviewing proposals for additional seismic surveys in the entire offshore Palawan and Sulu Sea areas.
"These are international companies. The Philippines does not have a capability, the government does not have the capacity to conduct its own seismic. Very expensive to shoot data. The cost of one seismic is maybe $2 million," Layug said.
The DOE will use data culled from the seismic surveys in future public bidding rounds for oil and gas service contracts.
During the last Philippine Energy Contracting Round for petroleum projects in April, four out of the 12 oil and gas blocks failed to receive bids from investors. The four blocks have no seismic data.
"Yung areas na walang bid, yun yung pinaka walang data, which goes to show na talagang kailangan natin may data because no one will submit a work program if they don’t know the indication of what is there," Layug said.
Besides helping improve the chances of petroleum blocks getting offers from investors, data from seismic surveys can also be sold to interested parties. Proceeds from the sale of these data can be shared by the DOE and the seismic company.
"May hatian tayo. Ultimately ang hatian natin diyan malaki. Malaki ang kinikita ng gobyerno kahit wala tayong ginastos," Layug said.
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