PNOC seeks proposals for Batangas port

By Alena Mae S. Flores – March 25, 2024, 7:40 pm
from manilastandard.net

PNOC president Oliver Butalid

State-run Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) is seeking proposals to help transform its existing port in Batangas province into a P5-billion launching port for offshore wind developers (OSW).

PNOC president Oliver Butalid said the company’s board committed to converting its existing bulk cargo handling international port into a dedicated launching port to support and spur OSW development in the country.

“We are interested, and actually eager to accept solicited and unsolicited proposals for it. And the proposal that we are looking for is a ‘fund, operate, build’ proposal under the new PPP Code which we are expecting the IRR to come out hopefully this month,” Butalid said.

“The wind corridor of Batangas-Mindoro, of which we have a port right smack of that, the ESB port can service a potential 32 gigawatts of four or five developers,” he said.

Butalid said PNOC already received interest from foreign companies, including from an investment fund in New York.

He said the investment fund would have to look for an ideal OSW port operator. “It has to be an investor who will fund it, estimated to be $100 million,” the PNOC executive said.

He said operating an OSW port is a very specialized operation, as it is based on the tight schedule of the developers that will book the area.

PNOC’s 19.2-hectare property in Mabini, Batangas was originally proposed as the PNOC Energy Supply Base, but the new management decided to revise the project after consultations with OSW proponents.

Butalid said they planned to engage the UP National Engineering Center to help with the feasibility study for the project.