Gov. Pamela Baricuatro met with Ibrahim Attereh, chief executive officer of Texcal Energy, in her office on May 19 where she assured the executive of the province’s support to investors in the province.
“You have come to Cebu at the right time, when the provincial government is open to working with investors in Cebu,” the governor told Attereh and his party.
Also present were Energy Undersecretary Alessandro Sales and Department of Energy (DOE) field office Visayas director Renante Sevilla.
Texcal Energy, the Indonesian-based energy company, is set to start working on the Alegria Oil and Gas Field in Alegeria, a town about 113 km south of Cebu City, after it has been granted by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. the Petroleum Service Contract No. 89 (SC 89) for the redevelopment of the Alegria Oil and Gas Field.
Restart
The project aims to revive operations at the field after three years of dormancy and is expected to stimulate local economic activity, generate jobs, and boost indigenous energy supply for Cebu and the wider Visayas region.
Oil exploration in the area began in 2018 under a Chinese contractor, but operations were suspended in 2023 due largely to operational challenges and restrictions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Attereh told Baricuatro that the company plans to produce diesel for the local market.
“The rest of the crude oil which needs heavier processing will be required to go into a refinery mostly close to Manila or outside the country to ensure that we have the proper products coming from this crude oil,” he said.
Recoverable
Initial estimates indicate that the Alegria field contains around 27.93 million barrels of oil in place, with approximately six million barrels considered recoverable.
Recoverable natural gas resources, meanwhile, are estimated at 6.6 billion cubic feet, representing nearly 70 percent of the field’s total estimated gas reserves of about 9.42 billion cubic feet.
Sales, a petroleum exploration expert with more than 40 years of industry experience, noted that Cebu was the first province in the country where oil was extracted, even during the revolutionary period.
He would not be surprised, he said, if Texcal would actually find other energy sources in other parts of Cebu.
“Hopefully, with their experience in dealing with crude oil, we can make something work for Cebu,” Sales said.
Not Cebu’s first
Alegria oil exploration was not the first in Cebu.
As early as 1896, Smith and Bell conducted petroleum exploration in Toledo City, about 50 km west of Cebu City, but what it extracted was not commercially viable, according to the article written by John Mark Bautista of the DOE and posted on the GeoExPRO website on April 17, 2020.
“In terms of petroleum exploration, the Philippines is still very much underexplored. Roughly only 10 percent of the country’s territory has viable data in relation to petroleum exploration, with the data heavily concentrated in the offshore western side of Palawan and onshore Cebu,” Bautista wrote.
Start small
In an online press conference last month, Sales said production may just be small at first since the expected volume of recoverable oil may just be about four million barrels.
“There is a plan to get the oil refinery in place in terms of bunker fuel and diesel. So it will start as a small scale type operation so we can make use of the resource,” he said.
“Now don't get very big ideas. The current known reserve is small scale. However, that does not prevent further exploration. Baka sa ilalim mas magaganda at mas malalaking ma-discover. Pero doon po tayo mag-uumpisa. (But maybe underneath, they might find something good and bigger. But we will start from there).” —Ed: Corrie S. Narisma
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