Department of Energy set to review geothermal deals

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Energy (DOE) will review all geothermal contracts that are not performing based on their work program.

Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said all renewable energy contracts, including geothermal projects, will be studied to determine their compliance to their contractual obligations.

“For renewables, I’m not sure how many we might have to cancel. If you are given a contract, you should have a work program, you should submit documents. So we are going through the process of checking,” Almendras said.

Earlier, Almendras fielded out warnings to petroleum exploration contractors who are not performing or not even submitting a work program for their respective service contracts.

Meanwhile, Energy Assistant Secretary Mario Marasigan said the DOE has been encouraging geothermal developers to continue with their aggressive drilling activities.

Marasigan said geothermal projects are one of the sources of power the DOE is pushing for further development.

“They should speed up their exploration activities to firm up their development plans. Such plans will help the department firm up committed geothermal capacity additions especially for 2014 to 2020,” he said.

The DOE has approved numerous service contracts with total capacity of 2,578 megawatts after the passage of the renewable energy law in 2008.

The department gave the go-signal to 1,455 MW of geothermal projects in the Luzon grid which include Clean Rock Renewable Energy Resources Corp.’s 60-MW Daklan geothermal prospect and Magma Energy Resource Inc.’s 60-MW Buguias-Tinoc and 80-MW Mainit-Sadanga geothermal prospects.

These also include the 60-MW Kalinga geothermal project of Aragorn Power and Guidance Management Corp.; 20-MW Acupan geothermal prospect of Primary Energy Corp.; Clean Rock’s 40-MW Natib geothermal prospect; Constellation Energy Corp.’s 40-MW Montelago geothermal prospect and PetroEnergy Resources Corp.’s 20-MW Maibarara geothermal prospect.

DOE also approved Energy Development Corp.’s 60-MW Labo geothermal prospect, PNOC Renewables Corp.’s 70-MW Isarog geothermal prospect and the 40-MW Bulusan geothermal prospect of SKI Construction Group, among others.

The department approved 984 MW of geothermal projects for the Visayas and 138.48 MW of geothermal projects for Mindanao.

Around 21 geothermal projects are currently pending approval from the department.