UAE joins fray to build LNG hub in Philippines

The Philippines has shortlisted six countries and will choose one from them as a partner for its planned $2-billion receiving and distribution facility for imported LNG, an official from the staterun energy firm PNOC said yesterday.

The countries that have been shortlisted are China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia and the UAE, said Arwin Ardon, head of the team at the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) that is overseeing the project.

The construction of the project, which includes a 5 million tonnes-per-annum storage facility, could be completed by 2020, or four years before the country’s Malampaya natural gasfield is depleted, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said last month.

The Philippines’ energy demand is set to triple by 2040, with electricity requirements anticipated to grow four times from 2015. To support this spike, the country needs to step up power generation capacity by 7,000 megawatts over the next five years and wants foreign investors to help. “[The LNG project] is a complete package with storage facility, regasification, a power plant that is scalable up to 1,000 megawatts (MW), and redistribution,” Ardon told reporters on the sidelines of a power industry conference. The power plant will initially have a capacity of 200MW.

Philippines aims to start importing LNG before Malampaya gas, currently used to produce a fifth of the country’s power supply, runs out by 2024.