Published November 2, 2017, 10:00 PM
By Myrna M. Velasco
With the highly anticipated signing
of the Philippine Natural Gas Regulation (PNGR) Framework, the Department of
Energy (DOE) has already set off signal on the kick-off of liquefied natural
gas (LNG) importation to satiate the country’s energy needs, even ahead of the
contract termination of the Malampaya gas field project.
As stated by Energy Undersecretary
Donato D. Marcos, “with this policy in place, the Philippines can readily start
importing LNG to safeguard the anticipated drop in the supply of Malampaya
natural gas in 2022.”
This, he added, will be “coupled
with the forthcoming termination of its (Malampaya gas field’s concession by
2024.”
Marcos explained the policy “would
govern the entry and development of LNG regas terminal and its related
facilities in the Philippines.”
He added that such has been designed
“in the promotion of the Philippines as an LNG emerging market characterized by
a liberalized/competitive environment and market-based pricing.”
The gas industry framework’s
advancement into a concrete policy, according to the energy official, will
likewise underpin the targeted groundbreaking next year of the planned LNG
terminal that will line up state-run Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) as
the lead investor.
Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi
indicated that his marching order would be to set the LNG terminal on
commercial stream by year 2020.
The country, he said, will start
“with the rollout of the Batangas LNG terminal by 2020 to safeguard against
anticipated depletion of the Malampaya gas facility in 2024.”
The energy chief’s instruction to
PNOC would be to undertake competitive bidding next year on targeted partners
for the blueprinted LNG ventures.
But while the Philippines has just
been moving headway on its gas investment policy reset, global energy
think-tank International Energy Agency (IEA) has been sounding off ‘cautionary
approaches’ to markets intending to expand their gas technology applications –
caveats that the country’s energy planners and policymakers may ought to
consider.
Fatih Birol, IEA executive director,
noted that with recent geopolitical events such as extreme weather swings to
political tensions, “the security of natural gas supplies cannot be taken for
granted even with the current low price environment and oversupplied market.”
It was emphasized that “even in the
current low-price environment, suppliers are still exposed to low-probability
but high impact events that could have potentially serious consequences for
global gas supplies.”
Amid well-supplied and low price
milieu in the LNG industry, according to the IEA, markets are still
experiencing ‘shocks’ that have in turn been creating new form of ‘security
challenges’ in the energy sector.
It stressed that such had been due
to the transformation that gas markets have currently been undergoing –
primarily from having a system of regional markets to being globalized and
interdependent markets.
Birol further indicated that “from cold
spells in southern Europe, to hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, to diplomatic
tensions among Gulf countries, energy security is impossible to ignore.”
The IEA stated these events manifest
“how importing countries in mature and well-interconnected markets can still
experience ‘unexpected shocks’ that put strong pressure on the market.”
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