ENERGY WORLD Corp. (EWC), Excellent Energy Resources, Inc. (EERI), and Batangas Clean Energy, Inc. have projected the launch commercial operations of their natural gas-fired power plants between 2022 and 2025, according to the Department of Energy (DoE) documents.

According to the DoE’s list of private-sector initiated committed power projects in Luzon compiled as of the end of December, the plants launching in the next few years include the 650-megawatt (MW) EWC combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) in Quezon; EERI’s 1,750-MW Ilijan liquified natural gas (LNG) power plant in Batangas; and the Batangas Clean Energy’s 1,100-MW natural gas-fired plant.

Committed power projects are those that have obtained financing from investors or banks.

The 650 MW – EWC CCGT plant is scheduled to begin commercial operations by December 2022.

The first phase of the Ilijan LNG power plant is scheduled to go onstream by March 2023, and the second phase is due to start its commercial run by June 2024.

Meanwhile, Batangas Clean Energy’s natural gas-fired plant project is targeted for operations by December 2025. The DoE added that the Batangas Clean Energy’s project is still in the feasibility study stage with construction to begin by the third quarter this year.

Greater dependence on gas-fired plants coincides with the Philippines’ transition to imported gas in the wake of the impending depletion in 2027 of the Malampaya gas field, the country’s only indigenous source.

A month earlier, the DoE identified Vires Energy Corp. and Atlantic Gulf and Pacific Co. (AG&P), among others, as potential investors in a floating facility for imported gas.

Vires Energy is owned by listed company A Brown Co., Inc., while AG&P, which operates globally, is a Filipino firm with manufacturing plants in Batangas.

The two firms were mentioned by DoE Assistant Secretary Leonido J. Pulido III last month at a Senate hearing on the proposed midstream natural gas industry act, which covers various operations including the aggregation, supply, importation, receipt, unloading, loading, processing, storage, regasification, transmission and transportation of natural gas in original or liquefied form. — Angelica Y. Yang

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