PBBM: PH resolving WPS issues to start new energy exploration projects

MANILA — The government is working to address issues in the West Philippine Sea so it could start new energy exploration projects before the country’s only gas field runs dry, according to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. 

In an interview with Japanese media Saturday, Marcos said that progress on talks for exploration in the waters, believed to hold rich oil and gas deposits, has been very little.

“We’re still at a deadlock right now. It is in a conflict area. So that’s another thing that we have to try and resolve to see what roles any countries play,” Marcos was quoted as saying in a release issued by the Presidential Communications Office. 

“It’s still of course the position of the Philippine that this is not in a conflict area. This is very clearly within our exclusive economic zone… within our baselines, within the maritime territory, the Philippines,” he added. 

The Philippines is seeking to secure future energy supplies as its energy reserves dwindle. The Malampaya gas field off Palawan, which supplies about 40% of power to Luzon, is expected to run dry by 2027. 

Relations between the Philippines and China have deteriorated under Marcos, who has sought to strengthen ties with the United States and push back against Beijing’s increasingly aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea. 

In contrast, his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte pursued a foreign policy shift toward China in exchange for investment pledges.

Manila signed an agreement with Beijing in 2018 to cooperate on oil and gas development as a way to benefit from the waterway’s rich resources. 

Then, in 2020, Duterte lifted an Aquino-era order halting exploration activities in the West Philippine Sea and allowed the resumption of drilling activities. 

Switch to LNG

The Philippines is scaling up the development of policies and infrastructure to support the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in anticipation of the depletion of the Malampaya gas project. 

Marcos sees LNG, which is touted as a cleaner alternative to coal due to lower carbon dioxide emissions, as a transition fuel to renewable energy. 

“We are seeing LNG as being the transition between purely fossil fuel, coal, to the more bigger mix of renewables,” Marcos said. 

Climate and energy campaigners, however, argue that increasing the share of LNG in the energy mix is not an effective decarbonization strategy as it is primarily composed of methane—a more potent greenhouse gas that leaks into the atmosphere at every stage of its life. 

Analysts also said that LNG prices are expected to remain high and volatile. 

The government targets to increase the share of renewables in the country’s generation mix to 30% by 2030 and to 50% by 2040.