In a joint statement, Shell Philippines Exploration BV (SPEX) said it signed Service Contract No. 60 with Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co. (Philippines), South China Resources Inc. and the Department of Energy, under which they would search for petroleum in a "relatively unexplored" area of 1.01 million hectares offshore north of Palawan. Interests in Service Contract 60 are distributed as follows: SPEX, 55 percent, Kufpec Philippines, 30 percent, and South China Resources, 15 percent. Kufpec is a subsidiary of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. South China Resources is a Philippine company listed on the stock exchange and involved mainly in oil exploration. A service contract is a license issued by the Department of Energy for exploring and drilling for oil and gas prospects in a specified area. The partners said the SC 60 area, previously covered by Geophysical Survey and Exploration Contract No. 99, was "one of the promising sites" for petroleum exploration identified by a study by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the Department of Energy. The study provided updated data on the petroleum basins in the country and identified the level of prospectivity of each area. Under SC 60, the consortium commit to spend at least $24 million over a seven-year exploration period. PIN/INQ7