SMC Global Power Holdings Corporation of the San Miguel group officially leads the Philippines’ debut into the “LNG importers club of the world” following the arrival of its first LNG shipment at one of the country’s major ports.
The Department of Energy (DOE) affirmed the arrival of the first batch of LNG shipment of SMC in Subic last week. Its gas supplier, Vitol Asia Pte. Ltd. of Geneva-headquartered Vitol Group, recently announced that the LNG shipment for the 1,200-megawatt Ilijan gas-fired power plant will be arriving in the country by mid-April.
The LNG supplier-firm conveyed that the LNG cargo was loaded on to a161,900-cubic-meter Golar Glacier vessel from its global gas portfolio on Das Island, United Arab Emirates, which is under its long-term contract with partner Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).
Vitol Asia President Mike Muller emphasized that this first shipment of LNG for San Miguel into the Philippines is a historic milestone. “We look forward to bringing more LNG supply from around the world to meet the rising gas demand of the Philippines,” said Muller.
SMC has a lease arrangement with the LNG import facility set up by AG&P close to the Iljan gas plant in Batangas.
Separately, the DOE indicated that the floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) to be provided to First Gen by BW Asia, a subsidiary of Norwegian firm BW Group, is now in Malaysia and already undergoing final checkup by the Lopez company.
According to a source at the department, the arrival of the FSRU into the country is targeted by July, then the commercial operation of the LNG import facility of First Gen will be August or September this year.
The commercial operations of the LNG import terminals will help ease the “gas restriction impediments” recurrently suffered by some power generating facilities in the past two years because of the depleting state of production at the Malampaya gas field.
Since 2018, the DOE issued notices-to-proceed (NTPs) on proposed projects of at least six investors – and the “real race” begins this year as some players are already reaching the finish line and now advancing into commercial operations of their projects.
In the government’s roll of LNG project-sponsors are: FGEN LNG Corp of First Gen Corporation and Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd., Excelerate Energy L.P.; Atlantic Gulf & Pacific Company (AG&P); Shell Energy Philippines; Vires Energy Corporation; and Energy World Gas Corporation.
The investment-blueprints of almost all of the proponents kicked off with the installation of FSRUs that have capacities ranging from 3.0 to 5.0 mtpa. The project proponents are targeting to ramp up capacities when gas demand picks up in the coming years. Some investors also have longer term plan to eventually establish onshore import terminals.
The country currently has five gas-fired power facilities with aggregate capacity of 3,211 megawatts. Four of these assets belong to First Gen (the 1,000MW Santa Rita, 500MW San Lorenzo, 414MW San Gabriel and 97MW Avion generating facilities); while the 1,200MW Ilijan gas-fired power fleet is being operated by SMC subsidiary South Premiere Power Corp.
From a strategic planning standpoint, it was qualified that LNG investments will not just help the country into its decarbonization pathway, but will also address energy security issues.
