Phl eyes Brunei as biggest source of natural gas

MANILA, Philippines - Brunei would likely be one of the Philippines’ biggest sources of natural gas supply in the medium term, Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras told reporters over the weekend.

“On my trip to Brunei, the Sultan promised to prioritize the Philippines gas contracts for 2015,” Almendras said.

The energy chief said the Philippine government is expecting a similar gas supply agreement possibly with Australia.

Meanwhile, he said before sealing gas supply contracts, the government would zero in first on bidding out the Batangas-Manila (Batman) 1 gas pipeline project.

According to Almendras, they would like to bid out Batman 1 as part of the country’s premier Private-Public Partnership (PPP) program in the energy sector. “We may bid out the Batman, most likely PPP because of the pipeline franchise,” he said.

He said the Department of Energy (DOE) is just awaiting the results of the study by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on the comprehensive master plan for natural gas industry of the Philippines.

“JICA advised that the natural gas study will be completed by end of this month,” he said.

After the study, the government expects to conduct the bidding by next year.

A number of interested parties have already expressed to participate in the country’s LNG program.

Among those who would want to build LNG infrastructure-terminal, pipeline or gas-fired power plant are: First Pacific Capital (Australia); ENN Energy Holdings (China); Synergy International (HK); SKE & C (Korea); Korean Western Power (Korea); BW Ventures; Hyundai Merchant Marine (Korea); Energy World (Australia); PNOC, GN Power, First Gen Corp.; and Abacus Consolidated Resources/ENI-Saipem (Italian).

There are also three Indian companies that expressed keen interest to put up an LNG facility in the Philippines.

The Philippine government, as much as possible, wants to make the development of LNG simultaneously done in Luzon and Mindanao.

In 2002, the JICA prepared a master plan for the development of the natural gas industry in the Philippines. Given the timeline presented in the master plan, the implementation of the proposed infrastructure projects was not realized due to several factors (i.e projects were too investment-intensive, regulatory environment not conducive, gas supply limitations).