Amid an increasingly tense territorial dispute between the Philippines and China, an Australian-Filipino consortium is set to drill a new deepwater exploratory well in the resource-rich West Philippine Sea, hoping to tap a commercially viable oil reservoir, a lawmaker revealed.

Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers’ Association party-list Rep. Arnel Ty said the private consortium that runs petroleum Service Contract (SC) 55 will spud or drill the Hawkeye exploratory well on Aug. 1, immediately after the July 31 arrival of the super deepwater drill ship

Maersk Venturer on site. The SC 55 site, fortunately, is not situated in parts of the West Philippine Sea that are being claimed by China.

“We applaud the consortium’s resolve to push through with the drilling of the well, at a time when many oil and gas explorers around the world have abandoned their search for new hydrocarbon deposits amid the 50 per cent plunge in oil prices,” Ty said.

“This new drilling underscores the strategic economic value of the West Philippine Sea, which is the source of most of the country’s productive offshore oil and gas fields, and is believed to hoard stacks of hydrocarbon that, once harnessed, could enable the Philippines to become self-sufficient in its future energy needs,” he said.

Ty said Department of Energy (DOE) in March granted a force majeure on a separate petroleum exploration concession in the West Philippine Sea –SC 72 – because it falls within the disputed area that is now the subject of a United Nations arbitration process between the Philippines and China.