The Department of Energy (DOE) is ready to take on the challenges of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s second year in office after successfully implementing reforms in the energy sector and minimizing power outages in his first year in office.
“Immediate, medium term, long term, we’re all set for the President’s second year in office,” Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla said during the launch of the Energy Regulatory Commission’s online platform ERC LINKod that will reduce the processing time for all services by an average of 50 percent.
Lotilla said the DOE was “able to the keep the lights on despite forecasts of massive power interruptions” upon the President’s assumption in office.
“The other one which the President says we have to ensure adequate supply for our people. While we have experienced power interruptions, the question actually that I was asked why didn’t we have more brownouts than what was predicted,” the Energy chief said.
“We did have some brownouts, but that’s why I’m thankful for everyone in the power industry for having cooperated,” Lotilla said.
He said the power generators and the transmission concessionaire complied with the maintenance schedules thus power interruptions were minimized.
“There is much more to be done, but the fact that we did it in Luzon, despite the 1,200 megawatt loss of Ilijan or the case of the SPUG (Small Power Utilities Group) areas, despite the massive increase in the cost of fuel, the fact that relatively we were able to keep the lights on is important,” he said.
Lotilla said the DOE continues to be hopeful in terms of supply adequacy and government is doing to do its best to ensure that the prices become more manageable.
“We have seen that in the last inflation rate reports that in the power/energy sector, prices have been going down. We will continue to work with ERC [Energy Regulatory Commission] in monitoring the decline in fuel prices as they get reflect in the power bills,” he said.
Lotilla said the DOE has also delivered the President’s call for greater indigenous and renewable energy use.
The DOE recently awarded the contracts for the Green Energy Auction Program 2 which generated a total of 3,440.756 MW of RE capacities that have been committed for development and installation for the years 2024, 2025, and 2026.
The DOE also awarded 68 offshore wind contracts with 55,105 MW potential capacity as of June 26, 2023. These OSW contracts are part of the 187 wind energy service contracts issued by the DOE as of the same period.
Meanwhile, 237 solar energy operating contract with an aggregate installed capacity of 1,282 MW and potential capacity of 21,452 MW have been awarded by the DOE.
“And on the upstream, his concern for developing Malampaya and similar gas fields in the country, definitely those have been achieved,” he said
The President renewed the Malampaya service contract 38 for15 years (until February 2039), which will allow the full production of the Malampaya gas field by ensuring the utilization of the remaining gas reserves estimated at 147 billion cubic feet.
The DOE said this will kick-start the timely exploration and development of the in-field and near-field prospects which may provide additional reserves of around 210 billion cubic feet.
The DOE also allowed Nido Petroleum Philippines Pty. Ltd., the operator of SC 68 and 54, to proceed with the site survey of their drilling locations in their service contract areas, which was conducted from November to December 2022.
These activities paved the way for the drilling of two wells (one exploration and one appraisal), to be conducted by the fourth quarter of 2023.
The DOE said for SC 6B covering the Cadlao oil field, the Cadlao 4 appraisal well could lead to early oil production towards the fourth quarter of 2023 to first quarter of 2024, with the potential volumes of 6.2 million barrels of oil.
Meanwhile, for SC 54 located in the Northwest Palawan basin, the drilling target is the Nandino prospect, with potential volume of 15 million barrels of oil.
The successful development of the Nandino prospect will give way to the possible development and tie up with the two existing discoveries, namely Tindalo and Yakal.
The DOE has released a summary of its major accomplishments in the energy sector for June 30, 2022 to June 22, 2023.
This includes streamlining the permitting process for energy projects through Energy Virtual One-Stop Shop System.
A total of 1,724 applications have been approved for the period June 2022 until June 26, 2023.
On the other hand, the DOE said the Philippines will now have two reception and regasification facilities for imported liquefied natural gas, dubbed as a transition fuel.
Linseed Field Corp.’s floating storage unit, an onshore regasification facility became operational in June 2023.
The facility is supplying the Ilijan power plant since June 1, 2023.
The other facility is First Gen LNG terminal, which consists of a multi-purpose jetty, an adjunct onshore gas receiving facility and the BW Batangas floating storage and regasification unit.
