Manila Times.net
Published : Thursday, January 19, 2012 00:00 Written by : Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo
The Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC) has released another tranche of cash dividends to the government.
Gemiliano Lopez, Jr., PNOC-EC chairman and chief executive officer, said that the company’s board declared a cash dividend of P1.5 billion to the government this month.
“[The amount] that would be paid to the national treasury is on top of the P5 billion remitted to the national government as of September last year, or a total of P6.5 billion within the space of nine months,” he said.
PNOC-EC is the upstream oil, gas and coal subsidiary of state-owned PNOC. The company’s shares of stock is 99.78-percent owned by the Philippine government, with the remaining 0.22 percent owned by private stockholders. The government dividend was made possible by PNOC-EC’s earnings of P3 billion for the year 2011, compared to a net income of only P2.5 billion in 2010, or an increase of P500 million.
The company official said that the profit growth was brought about by increased efficiency and profitability of the corporation from “intensified and more extensive activities in the production and sustainable development of indigenous petroleum, oil, coal and other energy resources.”
PNOC-EC’s profits were derived mostly from its share in the Malampaya, the country’s largest natural gas producer, and from its commercial port in Batangas.
This year, Lopez said that PNOC-EC is committed to drill oil and gas exploration wells in Service Contracts 37 and 63 in the Cagayan Basin and Southwest Palawan, respectively, aside from pursuing other exploration activities throughout the country.
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