First Gen Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer Jon Russell (right, inset photo) greets Brian Byrne, CEO of Siemens Power Generation Service Asia, shortly before the three-day conference opened.
FIRST Gen Power Corp. is in talks with 20 gas suppliers interested to supply the Lopez-led firm as it undertakes a billion-dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Batangas City.
“I think we are talking in excess of 20 different suppliers and there is no immediate need to make a decision today. We are still in active discussions with gas suppliers. We haven’t made any decisions in that regard,” said Jonathan Russell, First Gen executive vice president and chief commercial officer.
Even though the company is currently negotiating for short-term LNG supply, Russell said work is currently focused on looking at the start of construction of the terminal.The supply of LNG, he said, will parallel that.
First Gen has completed predevelopment work to make the site construction-ready. A groundbreaking was held in May at the First Gen Clean Energy Complex in barangays Santa Clara, Santa Rita Aplaya and Bolbok, Batangas City.
“Maybe the way to think about that is, we separate the discussions for the long-term supply which is for 2024 onwards, and also for the short term if we execute the plan to bring in an FSRU (floating storage regasification unit); then we might bring in LNG as early as 2021 to 2024. We are not yet ready to make a decision for the supplier at the moment,” he said.
The plan is to modify First Gen’s existing jetty to enable LNG to be brought in via an FSRU on an interim basis during the term of President Duterte.
An FSRU is an LNG storage ship with an onboard regasification plant capable of returning LNG back into a gaseous state. This can then be supplied directly to some or all of FGEN’s existing power plants that currently source gas from the Malampaya gas field.
Siemens pitch
Meanwhile, Siemens is interested to supply First Gen with the necessary equipment for its gas projects.
Siemens, if chosen, may be tapped as the O&M contractor for the gas power plants.
“We have said before that we have plans to build at least two new combined cycle units in Batangas…. We are planning to add roughly two new 600 megawatt units. Siemens is one of the companies we are talking with in doing that, using their new H-class machines and upgrade of the San Gabriel units but with higher output and better performance,” said Russell.
