Basic Energy to drill Mabini project by end-2018

By Jordeene Sheex Lagare – June 29, 2018
from The Manila Times

BASIC Energy Corp. is planning to conduct drilling activities in other parts of its Mabini Geothermal Project by the end of the year, its top official said.

“We’re doing a confirmatory well hopefully by the end of the year if not in the first quarter of next year,” Basic Energy President and Chief Executive Officer Oscar de Venecia, Jr. told reporters.

Located in the Calumpan Peninsula, the Mabini Geothermal Service Contract 8 is approximately 32.5 square kilometers and covers 3,841 hectares. The five-year exploration contract, awarded on July 10, 2008, was extended in 2015.

De Venecia said they are set to conduct another drilling activity as part of the contract since they believe they can gather more data.

“We feel we can gather more data that’s why we’re doing a confirmatory hole not on the same area but somewhere near [the area],” he said on the sidelines of Basic Energy’s annual stockholders’ meeting in Makati City.

For this year, Basic Energy has set capital expenditures of close to $4 million (P214.07 million), bulk of which will fund overseas business activities.

De Venecia said about P60 million to P70 million will be earmarked for its local undertakings, with P50 million of that to be used on the planned confirmatory hole in the Mabini project.

The company said it has no intentions of ditching its geothermal exploration because they believe it still has a future.

“We will need a lot of baseload requirements in geothermal as one of the sources for baseload power. We feel there is a lot of room for geothermal and we believe the projects that we have, although of course being geothermal will be more expensive than others because of the exploration cost, but in the long run it’s still viable,” de Venecia said.

Basic Energy is a holding company with interests in different fields of RE and alternative fuels as well as in and oil and gas exploration and development. It holds a 70 percent stake in Hong Kong-based electronic manufacturer Grandway Group Ltd.

Basic Energy shares dropped 1.23 percent to close at P0.24 on Thursday.