MANILA, Philippines – A Single energy project is expected under the public-private partnership (PPP) program, which is an expanded version of the earlier Batangas-Manila Natural Gas Pipeline project, the PPP Center’s top official said.
The Bat-Man project is still being processed under the PPP program, PPP Center executive director Ferdinand Pecson said in an interview on the sidelines of the Global Investment Forum.
“For now, coming from the DOE, there is one energy-related project. It’s not about power generation, it’s about transmission of natural gas,” he said.
The Department of Energy (DOE) previously said it is looking at other options in getting the project off the ground.
But in the recent sit-down between the PPP Center and DOE, Pecson said the DOE is revising the scope of the original P10.528-billion Bat-Man project, which will include not only the pipeline but also the regassification facility for natural gas.
“Actually, what the DOE has to decide about…is the scope that they now want to have for this project. Before, it’s just a pipeline, now they said they actually want to go further upstream and include the facility or the plant that would take in the raw material and process this into gas that would then be distributed,” he said.
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In the original plan, the Bat-Man is a 121-kilometer transmission pipeline that will transport and supply natural gas from Batangas to Metro Manila.
However, forming a fuel mix policy is critical in realizing the project because a massive development such as the Bat-Man project would need incentives, the official said.
“It will need fuel mix policy…because along with that policy is really creating the right kinds of incentives and also other measures for that policy to actually happen. There will be sort of an intervention in terms of incentives that will be provided. So the kinds of energy in that mix they would like to promote will actually happen,” Pecson said.
Earlier, the DOE said it is working on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) policy necessary to help the industry move forward and provide the country additional sources of power.
It is also in the process of reviewing the fuel mix policy “to find the correct mix.”
DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi had sought for the rationale of the energy mix laid down by the previous administration in the form of 30 percent from coal, 30 percent from renewable energy, 30 percent from natural gas and 10 percent from oil-based power plants.
In terms of capacity mix, the agency is looking at 65 percent from baseload plants, 25 percent from mid-merit plants and 10 percent from peaking plants.
