DoE revives Sucat plant repowering

As anchor for gas facilities

By MYRNA M. VELASCO

July 6, 2011, 1:42am

MANILA, Philippines — As the country races ahead in cornering investments for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and interlinked pipeline infrastructures, the Department of Energy (DoE) is reviving plans on the re-powering of the mothballed 850-megawatt Sucat power plant as anchor load for the envisioned gas facilities.

The blueprint of the proposed project has already been gathering dust for sometime as development phases for the nascent gas industry also stalled in the past years.

The integrated LNG re-gas terminal along with the high-pressure pipeline that shall stretch from Batangas to Manila, according to the DoE, would amount to $1.3 billion. This is an undertaking that the government has been planning to offer under a public-private sector partnership (PPP) arrangement.

The proposed LNG facility will augment the country’s gas supply given that the only additional capacity that can still be extracted from the Malampaya field may just hover at equivalent supply for 150 to 300MW.

“The $1.3-billion Batangas-Manila natural gas infrastructure project pipeline is expected to deliver natural gas from Tabangao, Batangas to the decommissioned 850-megawatt Sucat bunker fuel-fired power plant,” the department has noted.

Preliminary numbers rolled for the pipeline component had been placed at $100 to $150 million; or at the cost of $1.0 to $1.5 million for every kilometer of the proposed 100-kilometer stretch.

The proposed LNG re-gas terminals, along with the gas spurlines, are also expected to cater to other prospective markets of gas as fuel – either to industries or the transport sector.

The energy department cast grand plans of putting on the road some 1,000 compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles as the envisaged domestic gas industry would reach greater degree of success.