By
Lenie Lectura - October 25, 2018
TWO coal-exploration
projects of the Philippine National Oil Co.–Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC) were
classified as “Projects of National Significance” under Executive
Order (EO) 30.
These two are the Coal
Operating Contract (COC) 185 and 186 in Zamboanga Sibugay. Both are
in the predevelopment stage.
COCs 185 and 186 intend
to conduct exploration activities, including geologic, mapping, block boundary survey and drilling
to determine the extent, volume, behavior and quality of coal seams for
possible coal-mining operations in line with the Department of Energy (DOE)
directive to explore and develop indigenous energy resources of the country.
COC 185 covers an area
of about 2,000 hectares.
Meanwhile, COC 186 is
composed of five coal blocks and has a total area of over 5,000 hectares.
The two coal projects
seek “to explore and develop the COC as part of PNOC-EC’s commitment to harness
indigenous sources of energy.”
PNOC-EC posted P1.2
billion in net income at end-September this year, higher than the P959 million
it posted in the same period a year ago.
There are now six
energy projects certified by the DOE as Projects of National Significance.
Earlier, Atimonan One
Energy Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Meralco PowerGen Corp., the
power-generation arm of Meralco, is putting up the country’s first ultra
supercritical coal power plant in Atimonan, Quezon province. The facility’s
capacity is 2 x 600 megawatts (MW).
The DOE also declared
the 151.2-MW Talim wind-power project of Island Wind Energy Corp. as a Project
of National Significance.
The project, which is
in its predevelopment stage, was certified under EO 30 on August 30. It is
located in Talim Island, Binangonan and Cardona, Rizal.
The target commercial
operations date of the first 80-MW plant is in June 2020 and the 70-MW
plant would be in June 2021.
The DOE earlier
declared the Kalinga geothermal power project of Aragorn Power and Energy Corp., the power unit of
Sy-led APC Group Inc., as an energy “project of national significance.”
The DOE approved
Aragorn’s application on
August 14. The project is in its predevelopment stage, involving the
development of steam fields that can generate anywhere between 100 MW and 200
MW.
In May, the DOE
certified the Visayas-Mindanao Interconnection Project (VMIP) as the
first power project under EO 30.
The VMIP involves the
interconnection of Visayas and Mindanao via Cebu and Zamboanga. The
project is estimated to be completed
in 46 months with an estimated cost of P52 billion.
The Visayas-Mindanao
interconnection project is meant to interconnect the major grids into a single
national grid expected to help improve the overall power-supply security in the
country as sharing of reserves will already become possible.
EO 30 states that
concerned government agencies shall act upon applications for permits involving
Energy Projects of National Significance (EPNS) not exceeding a 30-day period.
If no decision is made within the specified processing timeframe, the
application is deemed approved by the concerned agency.
This effectively
reduced the time to process the permits needed by the power projects to take
off.
In order for an energy
project to be considered under the EPNS, power-generation and transmission
projects must have a capital investment
of at least P3.5 billion, significant contribution to the country’s economic
development, significant consequential economic impact, significant potential
contribution to the country’s balance of payments, significant impact on the
environment, complex technical processes and engineering designs, and
significant infrastructure requirements.
No comments:
Post a Comment