The Perth-based company today said the consortium, operated by its 100%-owned subsidiary, NorAsian, received approval from the Philippines’ Department of Energy to enter the second sub-phase of exploration of SC51.

“With this approval, the consortium is now poised to commence detailed well planning and design activities, with a view to drilling the Argao Prospect, which has estimated prospective resource potential of up to 270 million barrels of oil,” Otto said.

On top of this exploratory drilling, NorAsian will acquire a minimum of 250 line kilometres of seismic data on the southern sub-block of the contract area.

Otto said the acquisition of the data would enable the group to review several other prospects already identified, which may serves as follow-on exploratory drilling targets. These could include the Cabilao Reef structure, which has estimated potential resources of up to 125MMbbl of oil at relatively shallow drilling depths, it said.

SC51 is in the East Visayan Basin and comprises two sub-blocks with an aggregate area of 444,000 hectares.

NorAsian, which holds a 50% stake in the licence, currently operates the block with Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development as technical operator. Trans-Asia holds a 6.657% interest. Other participants include Canadian Vital Resources (30%), Filipino partners Alcorn Gold Resources (9.32%) and PetroEnergy Resources (4.01%).

The year-long second sub-phase is set to begin on January 8.