RP starts buying crude oil from Iran, other countries

The Philippines has started diversifying the sources of its oil supply, an energy official said.

"I think Shell has started to get oil from Iran but not as regular as its other sources," Department of Energy (DOE) Undersecretary J.V. Emmanuel de Dios said.

He said it would be better if they could work out a permanent deal with Iran. "We want this oil importing to become as regular as possible," he added.

The DOE has been trying to look for other sources of oil as the Saudi Arabian market, where the country gets most of its oil supply needs, has lately been prone to terrorist attacks.

As part of efforts to diversify the sources of oil outside of the Middle East, the country has started sourcing petroleum products from Russia, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Petron Corp., the country’s only publicly-listed oil firm and partly-owned by the government, started importing part of its requirements from Malaysia.

Shell has started to source some of its oil requirements from Russia, another possible source of oil in case of emergency.

Sakhalin Energy, a joint venture of Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, has been tapped to undertake the importation. At present, Sakhalin Energy supplies high quality oil only to Japan, Korea and Taiwan in the Asian region.

Diversifying fuel sources is part of the country’s overall Oil Contingency Plan (OCP) mapped out in 2002 at the height of the US-Iraq stand-off as a mean to prevent possible oil supply disruption.

Last October, DOE Secretary Vincent Perez held a series of talks with senior officers of several major oil companies in Russia such as Yukos Oil Corp., OAO Sibneft and OAO Rosneft Oil Co. Russia is the world’s second largest oil exporter, behind only Saudi Arabia.

The Russian oil industry has been on an expansion mode. The Energy Information Administration of the United States reported that Russia’s net oil exports are projected to increase to 5.01 million barrels of oil per day (bbl/d).

Russian oil exports to Asia are set to increase with the development of oil fields in Eastern Siberia, the Sea of Okhotsk and on Sakhalin Island. – Donnabelle Gatdula