Global spike pushes up oil import bill

Higher oil prices and an increase in the volume of imported petroleum products have jacked up the country’s oil import bill by 16 percent to $7.35 billion in the first half of 2012, from the $6.34 billion recorded during the same period last year.

Data gathered by the Inquirer showed that the total volume of imports made by the country’s major oil companies and independent players rose slightly by 7.3 percent to 61.36 million barrels from a year-ago level of 57.179 million barrels.

Of the 61.36 million barrels, 53 percent, or 32.536 million barrels, came in the form of crude imports, while the remaining 47 percent, or 28,823 million barrels, comprised finished petroleum products.

Meanwhile, the country’s export earnings plunged by 45.6 percent to $556.6 million in the first semester of the year compared with the $1.02 billion posted a year ago. This decline can be attributed to the 47.8-percent drop in the export volume to 4.838 million barrels during the period from the previous year’s 9.273 million barrels.

This has thus brought the country’s net oil imports—or crude and petroleum product imports, minus exports—to $6.798 billion in the first six months this year, up about 28 percent from the $5.317 billion posted in the same period last year.

The Philippine government, through the Department of Energy, has been targeting to reduce the country’s heavy reliance on fuel imports, to lessen the impact of global oil price volatility on local pump prices.

This is why the DoE has been aggressively moving forward various programs that will harness the country’s own indigenous resources, such as the Philippine Energy Contracting Round, in which the government partners with the private sector to explore and develop prospective energy blocks across the country.

The DoE believes that harnessing local resources will ensure energy security as it will help the country meet its daily oil requirements and reduce the importation of petroleum products. The DoE is expected to start awarding service contracts within the last quarter of this year under the fourth round of PECR for coal and petroleum.

The DoE is also implementing other projects that will likewise lessen the vulnerability of the Philippines in the event of any global oil price movements, such as the Alternative Fuels Roadmap, which seeks to diversify the Philippine transport fuel mix. The road map will see the conversion of existing transport vehicles to run on other fuels than diesel.

The plan was to convert over 2,000 diesel-run jeepneys to run using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and natural gas, the cost of which may reach some P200,000 for each unit of jeepney and as such, may require a special financing facility.

It was earlier reported that the DoE is working with multilateral agencies that are willing to lend the government money for this project on better-than-commercial terms.

For the buses, the energy department is looking to launch a pilot program to convert 10 buses so these would run on LPG at a cost of P150,000 each, or a total of P1.5 million.