Malampaya consortium to provide gas supply for 200 CNG buses

MANILA, Philippines - The Malampaya consortium has agreed to provide fuel supply for 200 compressed natural gas (CNG)-run buses, a PNOC-Exploration Corp. (EC) official said.

PNOC-EC vice president Joseph Omar Castillo said they are set to sign a memorandum of agreement (MOA) next week. “We will sign the MOA on Nov. 3,” he said.

The MOA will allow PNOC-EC, which is set to take over the Mamplasan CNG station, to source its natural gas requirement from the Malampaya deep water gas-to-power project in Northwest Palawan starting 2018.

According to Castillo, the MOA would also signal the start of the takeover of the Mamplasan station and at the same time the construction of another daughter station in Batangas. It will take six months to construct the new station.

At present, the Mamplasan station in Laguna fuels around 40 CNG-run buses.

Earlier, the CNG bus operators expressed disappointment over government’s alleged lack of interest to push for the use of natural gas in the transport sector.

However, Castillo clarified that the MOA would only involve PNOC-EC and the Malampaya consortium.

“The agreement excludes the CNG bus operators because any new party in CNG must be consented by Service Contract 38 due to technical issues,” he said.

In a statement, the CNG bus operators said the bus operators are willing to retain the current fare prices without anticipating future application for fare increases as CNG is priced at P18.38 per kilo.

“This locally sourced fuel is not dependent on the demand supply fluctuations of world oil prices. This is the solution to the stability of fare costs that contributes to inflation which the majority of the poor Filipinos share as instantly than anybody else.”

“In April 2008, a daughter station for the refilling of CNG buses was opened in Mamplasan, Biñan, Laguna. This station supplies natural gas to the CNG dedicated buses that participated in the Natural Gas for Vehicle Program for Public Transport (NGVPPT) pilot project. The natural gas being sourced from Malampaya in Palawan was identified by the government as possible fuel for buses and through an executive order the pilot project was implemented,” they said.

“However, since the opening of the station, no major developments were attained as the only station was found to be harboring inherent technical defects that hampered the success of the pilot,” they said.

Some years back, the DOE signed an agreement with Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. (PSPC) for a pilot CNG project for the transport sector. The test period which started several years after the agreement was signed in 2008, was supposed to run for seven years and would have involved 200 CNG-run buses.

Under the agreement, PSPC agreed to put up the mother-daughter stations and supply its gas needs of up to 200 buses for the duration of the pilot program.