Razon-led Prime Energy is sorting out ‘rigorous routine maintenance inspections’ and plant shutdowns at the Malampaya facility as a preparatory step for planned fresh round of exploration and drilling activities for the extended production life cycle of the gas field.

“For a facility with over 20 years of operation, rigorous routine maintenance inspections and plant shutdowns are imperative to uphold its world-class status. This is crucial as Prime Energy conducts exploration and development activities to extend Malampaya production for the long-term,” the company said.

The Malampaya consortium is scheduling new drilling activities next year to finally determine if additional gas output can still be extracted based on the gas field’s extended operational license.

It was in May last year when President Marcos signed the 15-year extension for Malampaya’s service contract (SC 38) – and that will effectively stretch the operating life of the country’s commercial gas field from 2024 to 2039. The initial 25-year contract for the project lapsed on February 24 this year.

Based on the work program that had been submitted by the Malampaya consortium to the DOE, the scale of investment they will be injecting for new wave of seismic survey as well as drilling of new wells will be more than $600 million.

Last week, a gas restriction predicament hobbled Malampaya’s operations, but Prime Energy claimed that it was able to complete repair ahead of targeted timeframe.

“Prime Energy safely completed the regular maintenance activity at the Malampaya shallow water platform ahead of schedule, ensuring smooth operations and timely maintenance for the platform's continued reliability,” the company noted, adding that gas production at the field had been fully operation since February 22.

The company qualified that production hold or gas restriction at the field started on February 13 – and that was done in coordination with the Department of Energy (DOE) and the consortium-members at the gas field, including UC38 LLC of the Udenna Group and state-run Philippine National Oil Company-Exploration Corporation.

In the repair work undertaken, Prime Energy conveyed that such activity had been intended to “manage high gas export pipeline pressure, owing to LNG commissioning activities at the First Gen plants,” and that in turn, precipitated decline in draw rates for gas from the Malampaya field.

Prime Energy explained that within the period, it had “implemented preventive maintenance activities and discovered severe corrosion in a section of the shallow water platform that required immediate permanent repair to guarantee the safety and reliability of operations.”

That setback in the facility, Prime Energy reiterated, had resulted in “staggered restriction of gas supply from February 18 to 20 with full lifting of restrictions to customers by February 22.”