Production at the Philippines' Galoc oilfield reached one million barrels on Monday, the operator said, adding that the sale of the next cargo to an Asian client was underway.

Galoc, off the southwestern Philippines, came onstream in October but was shut down in mid-December for inspection following production problems largely due to bad weather. Output resumed on February 25.
  
"The next offloading is scheduled for mid-March with the sale to an existing purchaser based in Asia and sale of the subsequent cargo is also well advanced," Galoc Production Company (GPC) said in a statement released by its Philippine partner Philodrill Corp. The buyer was not named.

Nido Petroleum Ltd., another equity holder in the field, said last month that two 300,000-barrel cargoes of Galoc's crude, called Palawan Light, were sold to Thai Oil and South Korea's SK Energy ahead of the December shutdown.

A similar-sized cargo was sold earlier to top Philippine refiner Petron Corp.

The output of the oil field was around 16,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) after production resumed late last month. It is expected to settle back to 12,000 to 14,000 bpd over the coming weeks, the operator said on Monday.

GPC, in which European trader Vitol has a 68.6 percent stake and Australian oil firm Otto Energy a 31.4 percent interest, is the operator of the field with a 58.29 percent share.

The remaining 41.71 percent is split between Nido Petroleum, with 22.28 percent, and several Philippine partners including Philodrill.

Galoc was the first major oilfield to come onstream in underexplored Philippines since the 1990s.