(The Philippine Star) | Updated November 26, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - A
Single energy project is expected under the public-private partnership (PPP)
program, which is an expanded version of the earlier Batangas-Manila Natural
Gas Pipeline project, the PPP Center’s top official said.
The Bat-Man project is
still being processed under the PPP program, PPP Center executive director
Ferdinand Pecson said in an interview on the sidelines of the Global Investment
Forum.
“For now, coming from
the DOE, there is one energy-related project. It’s not about power generation,
it’s about transmission of natural gas,” he said.
The Department of
Energy (DOE) previously said it is looking at other options in getting the
project off the ground.
But in the recent
sit-down between the PPP Center and DOE, Pecson said the DOE is revising the
scope of the original P10.528-billion Bat-Man project, which will include not
only the pipeline but also the regassification facility for natural gas.
“Actually, what the DOE
has to decide about...is the scope that they now want to have for this project.
Before, it’s just a pipeline, now they said they actually want to go further
upstream and include the facility or the plant that would take in the raw
material and process this into gas that would then be distributed,” he said.
In the original plan,
the Bat-Man is a 121-kilometer transmission pipeline that will transport and
supply natural gas from Batangas to Metro Manila.
However, forming a fuel
mix policy is critical in realizing the project because a massive development
such as the Bat-Man project would need incentives, the official said.
“It will need fuel mix
policy…because along with that policy is really creating the right kinds of
incentives and also other measures for that policy to actually happen. There
will be sort of an intervention in terms of incentives that will be provided.
So the kinds of energy in that mix they would like to promote will actually
happen,” Pecson said.
Earlier, the DOE said
it is working on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) policy necessary to help the
industry move forward and provide the country additional sources of power.
It is also in the
process of reviewing the fuel mix policy “to find the correct mix.”
DOE Secretary Alfonso
Cusi had sought for the rationale of the energy mix laid down by the previous
administration in the form of 30 percent from coal, 30 percent from renewable
energy, 30 percent from natural gas and 10 percent from oil-based power plants.
In terms of capacity
mix, the agency is looking at 65 percent from baseload plants, 25 percent from
mid-merit plants and 10 percent from peaking plants.
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