DOE to bid out more oil exploration areas

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Energy (DOE) will bid out more oil exploration areas in the Visayas and Mindanao, a ranking DOE official said.

Energy Undersecretary Ramon Oca told reporters the agency is currently in the process of coming up with a new set of guidelines to fasttrack the approval of new exploration contracts.

“This will encourage new investors to explore,” Oca said, noting that the bidding for five or six new contracts for oil exploration will likely be held by the second quarter of the year.

Aside from the contracting round for oil exploration, the DOE will also offer up to 35 areas for coal exploration within the first half of this year, as well as new areas for geothermal exploration.

But the DOE official said they would have to study the impact of the implementing rules and regulations of the Renewable Energy Act on geothermal development before launching the Philippine Energy Contracting Roand (PECR) for geothermal exploration areas.

He noted that under the new law, some fiscal incentives have to be incorporated in the geothermal contracting round.

“Under the new Renewable Energy Act, there are some amendments to the law especially in terms of incentives and fiscal regime, so we have to look at that. We have to come up with a new model for the geothermal energy contracts. We should now incorporate the new provisions of the law,” he said.

The new guidelines, he said, would also speed up the process of contract approval to effectively trim down the number of days that approval of an exploration contract is released.

Pitkin Petroleum Ltd of the UK, for instance, has to wait two years before it is awarded a contract. However, it was explained that it normally takes more time for a foreign company to sign a contract as it has to undergo approval process from Malacañang.

“We would want to speed up the process so that the investors will continue to invest in the country’s upstream development,” Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes said.

Another area that needs to be reviewed and studied to streamline the approval process is the identification of exploration areas from both the national and local government, Oca said.