AG&P ties up with Indonesian firm for LNG venture

Published January 5, 2017, 10:01 PM By Myrna M. Velasco

http://business.mb.com.ph/2017/01/05/agp-ties-up-with-indonesian-firm-for-lng-venture

Filipino firm AG&P has inked a deal with Indonesian firm Risco Energy Group Pte. Ltd. for liquefied natural gas (LNG) ventures taking off initially in the latter’s home market.

“AG&P and Risco will design manufacture, finance, charter-lease, operate and maintain compact and mid-scale LNG terminals,” AG&P’s announcement to the media has noted.

Nevertheless, there had been no specific project and off-taker industry or market that was named by the relevant parties at this stage.

In a general statement, AG&P Senior Vice President Anupam Ahuja just indicated that “the joint venture will primarily cater to the distributed energy requirements of the dynamic and fast-growing island nation of Indonesia across LNG storage, transport, regasification, power and full terminal solutions.”

He added that the tie-up would also take advantage eventually of “the commercial opportunities from priority LNG markets in Southeast Asia, including the Philippines.”

AG&P has long been positioning to secure a pie of the emerging LNG market in the Philippines, but it is still battling its way until this time to corner tangible projects in the industry.

Ahuja emphasized though that “the joint venture plays a critical role in growing our LNG foothold in Southeast Asia,” stressing that this development “follows AG&P’s recent launch of its ultra-shallow draft of LNG carriers and shuttles which are optimized for Indonesia’s shallow water harbors, estuaries and rivers.”

For the deal with Risco, the target is to widen the base of deployments of compact to mid-scale LNG applications as far as logistics support to the LNG industry is concerned.

The company noted that Risco’s last-mile applications via its LNG-carrying trucks would be able to augment the infrastructure that AG&P provides for LNG markets.

In the Philippines, AG&P has also been eyeing off-grid areas for modularized system of LNG applications, but the gas fuel shift for the power industry remains a struggle with policies and regulatory frameworks still being crafted by government.