The Service Contract No. 63 (SC 63) covering an area of 10,560 square kilometers is located in offshore Southwest Palawan Basin. SC 63 was awarded by the DOE on November 24, 2006 to the joint venture of PNOC EC and Nido Petroleum Philippines. Each company holds 50% interest with PNOC EC as operator.

The East Sabina block is a successful joint bid application of PNOC EC and Nido in Area 1 offered by the DOE under the Philippine Energy Contracting Round (PECR) launched in August 2005. Located on the southern portion of the SC 63 block is the Aboabo 1X gas discovery.

Potential petroleum plays in the area include thrust fold, carbonate build ups, folded carbonate platform and turbidite sands.

PNOC EC is currently conducting an initial basin evaluation of the contract area. The marine seismic acquisition survey in the last quarter of 2007 completed 3,254.80 line kilometers of new 2D data. Data processing will be underway in early 2008.