4 groups interested in Phl LNG venture

The Department of Energy (DOE) has received interests from four groups to put up a liquefied natural gas (LNG) integrated terminal to develop the country as trading and trans-shipment hub in the Asia Pacific region, a ranking official said.

These four groups include local firm Cleanway and UKbased Resiro, Japanese firm Tokyo Gas, Lopez-led First Gen Corp. and China National Offshore Oil Co. (CNOOC), Energy Assistant Secretary Leonido Pulido said.

“There are four companies which submitted letters of interest (LOI) and requests for preliminary conference,” he said. “They have not submitted their formal petition or application but there have been four preliminary conferences.”

The LOI signifies the groups’ intention to construct and establish the LNG integrated facility, which will include storage and regassification facility.

After submitting the LOI and going through preliminary conferences, the companies will file formal applications to construct the LNG facilities, Pulido said.

The DOE will still accept other LOI from interested parties since this is not a bidding process.

“It’s like people who are applying for a license so we have not imposed a deadline,” Pulido said.

The submission of LOI is in compliance with the Philippine Downstream Natural Gas Regulation (PDNGR) issued by the DOE last December.

The PDNGR details the rules and regulations governing the downstream natural gas industry to develop a market and gain energy security and sustainability.

“We are all concerned about what to do for our power plants which rely on Malampaya gas project that will be exhausted soon. In order to assure that there will be supply, the solution was to come up with PDNGR. Essentially, it allows rules that would determine who among several stakeholders can have the authority to put up the LNG integrated facility,” Pulido said.

Earlier, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi asked state-run Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) to put up an integrated LNG hub with storage, liquefaction, regassification and distribution facility, as well as a reserve initial power plant capacity of 200 megawatts (MW).

It is looking to build the LNG hub by piecemeal, starting with a floating storage and regassification unit with power plant which is expected to be completed by 2020.