The Duterte administration was prompted Monday to frontload early preparations to tap alternative power sources with the Malampaya gas field projected to dry up next year to “avert possible rotational brownouts.”
For its part, the Senate Committee on Energy, chaired by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, convenes Tuesday to set in motion Senate deliberations on options to further develop the natural gas industry, aiming to provide “a replacement of the Malampaya deep water gas-to-power project even before its supply runs out and avert possible rotational brownouts beginning 2022.”
On top of the committee agenda is Senate Bill 1819 earlier introduced by Gatchalian in anticipation of the nearing depletion of gas output from the Malampaya-Camago wells, noting that the output of the gas was projected to “start going down by 2024.”
“The direction of the Department of Energy [DOE] is to encourage the private sector to build receiving terminals for imported liquefied natural gas [LNG],” the senator said, adding: “And because we haven’t discovered new sources of gas in our country, we have to resort to importing LNG just to make sure that those 3,200-megawatt gas-fired power plants keep on running.”
Gatchalian pointed out that the Malampaya gas field fuels 5 power plants comprising 20 percent of the installed capacity of the Luzon grid, based on the 2019 Department of Energy (DOE) Power Statistics, serving 53.75 percent of Meralco’s electricity demand.
Moreover, the Senator noted that apart from the declining reserves, Malampaya’s service contract will expire in 2024.
At the same time, Gatchalian recalled that the DOE had issued a circular in November 2017 outlining the regulations to be followed by all stakeholders in the downstream natural gas industry. The senator said, however, that DOE’s issuance needs a complementary law to cover all aspects of the midstream natural gas industry which includes transportation, transmission, storage, and marketing of natural gas in its original or liquefied form.
The Senator reminded that “owing to the intricacy of the midstream natural gas industry, a comprehensive legislation is needed to fill in the gaps and strengthen existing bridge policies in order to unlock the potential of natural gas as a vital source of energy for the country.”
Source: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/01/05/government-told-to-develop-energy-sources/
