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WEDNESDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER 2012 20:06
The Department of Energy (DOE) plans to rebid next year those coal and petroleum projects that did not receive offers from investors during the most recent contracting round.
Undersecretary Jose M. Layug Jr. said the four oil and gas, as well as 10 coal contracts offered during the Philippine Energy Contracting Round (PECR) 4 will again be lined up for the auction block.
“We plan to do a bidding again for those blocks that have not received any bids for both coal and petroleum,” he said. “We are set to do the PECR 5 next year. Our thrust is to find these resources so we could conduct PECRs every two years.”
The said projects will be offered in PECR 5 next year on top of other similar contracts that will be identified by the DOE or endorsed by interested companies.
The PECR is the government’s public contracting round for energy projects.
In PECR 4, the DOE offered 15 petroleum and 38 coal-exploration and -development contracts to interested investors.
Layug said the four petroleum projects that were snubbed by investors pertained to those that did not have sufficient data or studies to draw their interest.
“We need to work on more data on these areas because based on our assessment, the reason why these four areas did not receive any bids is the lack of data,” he said.
The coal projects that did not receive bids were nominated by companies that later on backed out.
Despite this, the DOE plans to reach out to communities to boost investors’ interest in coal exploration and development, which has received flak from local government units and various cause-oriented groups because of the commodity’s alleged deleterious effect on human health and the environment.
“What we are doing now is we’re going around the Philippines conducting information education campaign for coal exploration just to make sure that people understand the extent of exploration activities for coal and the safeguards that the DOE want to ensure especially for coal exploration,” Layug said.
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