WARNING against a looming energy crisis, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian pressed Congress to frontload passage of a “landmark energy legislation” billed to boost the country’s supply of natural gas from liquefied natural gas (LNG) sources in order to “avert a possible energy security crisis from happening when operations of the Malampaya gas field project close for good” in the near future.
In sponsoring his Committee Report on Senate Bill 2203 seeking to put in place a national energy policy and framework, Gatchalian cited projections that “we could be facing a major energy crisis less than six years from now unless we find alternative sources to supply our country’s demand for natural gas.”
The senator stressed the remedial legislation, once enacted into law, will fasttrack “development and regulation of the Philippine midstream natural gas industry.”
He said the crippling brownouts that hit Luzon in the past, are “likely to recur when the Malampaya source is depleted, affecting not only households but also industries.”
“The dreaded widespread brownout in Luzon could recur when the supply from Malampaya dries up,” said Gatchalian, noting this will “affect not just households but also industries,creating a wide gap in the economy.”
The Philippines’s energy security, he added, depends largely on the available supply of natural gas, especially in Luzon where more than a quarter of the island’s power source is sourced from the Malampaya gas field located off the coast of Palawan.
Unfortunately, he added, its service contract is set to expire in 2024 and the estimated 858,834 million standard cubic feet remaining in the Malampaya field would be completely exhausted by the first quarter of 2027.
At the same time, Gatchalian affirmed the need to enact “a legal and regulatory framework to be established by the Midstream Natural Gas Industry Development Act to unlock the untapped potential of natural gas, especially LNG to achieve greater Philippine energy stability, sustainability, and savings.” He projected that liquified natural gas will “unlock new potential for consumer power savings as natural gas steadily catches up to coal as the most cost-efficient dispatchable power source.”