Extension of Malampaya group’s license sought

The Petroleum Association of the Philippines (PAP) yesterday called on Congress to extend for at least six more years beyond 2024 the license of the Malampaya natural gas project, saying this would help hold off widespread brownouts amid the slow addition of new power plants into the grid.

In a statement, PAP chair Rufino Bomasang said supply from Malampaya remained stable.

“Production from the Malampaya platform has even been above its normal average due to the increased demand resulting from the outage of the other power generators,” Bomasang said.

He said that without Malampaya responding to the increased demand for electricity, the power shortage “would have been much worse, and the brownouts would have been longer and more frequent.”

“We must do everything we can to ensure that the Malampaya project is extended and the gas finds are developed by the same experts who successfully ran Malampaya,” Bomasang said.

The Malampaya consortium includes Shell Exploration BV, Chevron Malampaya LLC, and PNOC Exploration Corp.

Shell officials earlier said production could be sustained beyond 2024, when the consortium’s license would expire.

Natural gas from Malampaya supports several power plants representing 3,211 megawatts of power generation capacity.

According to PAP, this displaces at least 1.35 million kilograms of carbon dioxide per hour that would have been emitted if the power plants ran on coal or fuel oil.

Currently, there are five existing gas-fed power plants—which are all in Batangas—that depend on Malampaya for fuel.

These include the 1,000-MW Sta. Rita complex, 500-MW San Lorenzo facility, 414-MW San Gabriel plant and the 97-MW Avion plant—all part of the portfolio of First Gen Corp. The fifth facility is the 1,200-MW Ilijan power plant, which is now part of the San Miguel group’s portfolio.