3 firms submit proposals to build $2 B LNG terminal

MANILA, Philippines — The government has received three proposals from foreign firms to put up a $2-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said yesterday.

Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), Lloyds Energy Group and China National Offshore Oil Co. (CNOOC) submitted proposals to the Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), the corporate arm of the Department of Energy.

“There is KEPCO, there is Lloyd and there is CNOOC that submitted unsolicited proposals. Actually, they made the proposal to PNOC, not DOE. So they (PNOC) will be the local partner,” Cusi said.

The proposals are with the PNOC’s technical working group (TWG). Among the three proposals, the PNOC TWG has already opened that of KEPCO, Cusi said.

Meanwhile, PNOC is open to receive more unsolicited proposals until Dec. 31, PNOC president Reuben Lista said.

The Philippine government decided to accept unsolicited bids for the LNG project after talks for a government-to-government (G2G) partnership fell through.

PNOC was tasked to put up an integrated LNG hub with storage, liquefaction, regassification and distribution facility, as well as a reserve initial power plant capacity of 200 megawatts (MW).

It is looking to build the LNG hub by piecemeal, starting with a floating storage and regassification unit with power plant (FSRU-PP) completed by 2020.

The FSRU-PP project, which will have an initial capacity of 200 megawatts (MW) and scalable to 800 MW, is expected to address the country’s emergency power needs in times of natural calamities.

Phase 2 of the project will include onshore facilities such as a five metric tons per annum (MTPA) storage units, regasification, power plant and distribution/redistribution.

Cusi earlier said construction of the LNG hub would start within 2018 with the aim of becoming an LNG hub of Asia.

The project is intended to take advantage of the growing gas demand in the region and to secure gas requirements ahead of the Malampaya depletion by 2024.

The Malampaya gas project supports the 3,500 MW of gas-fired power plants in Luzon.