Shell sees Phl as vital growth area

MANILA, Philippines - Royal Dutch Shell considers the Philippines as a significant area of growth for the company, given the rising energy demand, a ranking official said in a two-day summit in Kuala Lumpur last week.

Matthias Bichsel, Shell director for Projects and Technology said the company is in constant talks with the Philippine government on how it can help the country meet its rising energy demand.

“For us in Shell, when we look at the Philippines, we see clearly there is growth and we try to find together with the Philippine authorities, the best solutions to meet that energy demand,” said Bichsel on the sidelines of Shell Malaysia’s two-day Innovation Summit held in Kuala Lumpur last week.

He said that compared to other countries in the region, the Philippines is not that rich in oil and gas, thus, the need for other solutions such as import facilities.

“We do know there is quite a lot of power required so how can we provide that power for industrial purposes or domestic purposes. The Philippines, in terms of the endowment of oil and gas is not as rich as some of the other countries around so how do we find the best solution? There’s obviously import solutions,” he said.

Shell is planning to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facility in Batangas and has already announced plans to proceed to front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the facility.

 â€œFor LNG terminals, we’re working on a number of technologies. We have what we call micro-LNG plants. They are a fraction of the size of the very large LNG plants and we currently have a project in the United States where we take the relatively small gas pockets and we liquefy the gas there also for smaller markets. What we do is to understand the totality of the market in terms of what’s the peak capacity that it needs. That’s the sort of thinking that goes in when we look at a market like the Philippines,” he said.

The Energy department, for its part, has welcomed Shell’s plans to build an LNG import facility in Batangas, which could help jump-start the LNG industry in the Philippines.