By Lenie Lectura - July 8, 2019
ENERGY Secretary Alfonso Cusi said
last week that Dubai-based Lloyds Energy is partnering with Mitsubishi
Corp. Energy of Japan to put up a 1,200-megawatt (MW) liquefied natural gas
(LNG) merchant power plant.
“It is not an LNG terminal. It is a
power plant, a merchant power plant whose feedstock is LNG. That’s the business
model of Lloyds, ” Cusi said. “Lloyds Energy, together with Japan Mitsubishi, will
put up a 1,200-MW LNG power plant.”
Details of the proposed LNG merchant
plant have yet to be firmed up. Cusi said his office awaits Lloyds’s master
plan. They’re working on their papers. They’re going to submit it to us,” Cusi
said.
If and when submitted, Cusi said the
Department of Energy (DOE) would assess the proposal before any permit is
issued. “We have to await for Lloyds Energy to submit their master plan and
their timeline and schedule of work so we can issue the permit, if it will meet
the terms, the conditions required.”
If it pushes through, the LNG
merchant power plant can be put up in 18 to 24 months, Cusi said. Unlike
conventional independent power projects, merchant plants do not have
upfront, long-term power purchase agreements to cover their output.
Lloyds’s LNG plans, Cusi added, include partnership with state firm Philippine
National Oil Co. (PNOC).
“They are talking. PNOC is part of
the discussion. What PNOC would like to have is to get a board seat so we have
proper representation and how things are running,” Cusi said.
Lloyds Energy earlier signed a
memorandum of understanding with PNOC to explore ways to develop LNG
facilities and natural gas power plants in Bataan and Batangas provinces.
“The country needs an LNG power
plant and an oil depot. These steps will encourage also the private sector to
consider these directions, just like what we did with the LNG hub,” PNOC
President Reuben Lista said.
Cusi said Lloyds’s interest and that
of Mitsubishi to invest in the country was reached during President Duterte’s
working visit to Japan. “That is the product of our negotiation when we
went to Japan during the trip of the President. The government is doing
that…encouraging or inviting investment to address the energy requirement of
the country in the immediate future.”
In the past, Cusi said the
Japanese government, through the Japan International Cooperation Agency,
expressed its interest in building an LNG power plant in the Philippines. The
DOE had also invited Japanese investors to put up merchant power plants in the
Philippines through the Ministry of Economy, Trade and industry.
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