By Alena Mae S. Flores | Posted on July 26, 2012 | 12:01am
The Energy Department will ask Congress to earmark the royalty proceeds from the Malampaya gas project to pay government’s staggering P1-trillion debt in the energy sector and avoid additional taxes and lessen the burden of power consumers.
“I’m looking at the option not to charge that [P1 trillion] to taxpayers or consumers. Last year, I turned over $1 billion [in] net proceeds from oil and gas exploration,” Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras told participants of an economic forum sponsored by Security Bank Corp.
The Malampaya consortium of Shell Philippines Exploration BV (45 percent), Chevron Malampaya LLC (45 percent) and PNOC Exploration Corp. (10 percent) remitted a check worth $1.134 billion to the national government in January representing proceeds from the gas field for 2011.
“We need to reconstitute some of the laws, so that the income from energy resource development can be used to pay off the debt. Otherwise, we need to pay for universal charge over the next 25 years. We must make the right decisions today, not Band-aid decisions that are politically popular decisions,” Almendras said.
He said he would forward the proposal to Congress but could not say when it would be passed.
He said the P1-trillion figure was a “recurring debt” that government had to refinance annually. “Which is really what’s happening, we’re borrowing to roll over debt,” he said.
Almendras said part of the Malampaya proceeds might also be used for resource development. The government has used the Malampaya proceeds to fund security for oil and gas exploration in Philippine waters and the Pantawid Pasada program.
The consolidated energy sector debt reached P932.21 billion two years ago, with Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp., the agency in charge to privatize power assets, cornering bulk of the obligations. source
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