DOE to assess Bogo gas well this week

Department of Energy officials are expected to be in Cebu this week to visit the Libertad Gas Well in Bogo and to announce its commercial viability.

Energy officials said Bogo would benefit from cheaper power and more revenues once the project begins to operate.

DOE 7 director Antonio Labios said there are plans to develop the gas well into a power plant, that would surely provide ample power to the town and possibly to Cebu province. He said Forum Exploration, the contractor of the project, will operate the power plant and sell electricity to Cebu Electric Company.

"But the commercial viability of the project is still to be announced by the officials from Manila this week," Labios said.

Earlier, Energy Undersecretary Guillermo Balce said the Bogo natural gas is only second to Malampaya gas fields in Palawan in terms of volume. He said Malampaya has deposits of up to 3.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and are now being used to fuel gas-fired power plants in Luzon.

On the other hand, the Bogo gas field has about one billion cubic feet and is also enough to run a 1.75-megawatt gas-fired power plant that Forum Exploration plans to operate in early part of 2006. Meanwhile, Labios said that they would also start exploring in the Bohol Strait by end of this month. He said they have been conducting information campaign in the coastal towns of Bohol and Cebu to inform the people, especially fishermen about the coming explorations.

According to him, exploration in the Bohol Strait would cover around 204,000 hectares of waters off Dauis, Panglao, Tagbilaran, Cortes, Maribojoc, and Loon in Bohol, as well as Cebu's towns of Argao, Dalaguete, Alcoy, and Boljoon.

However, even before the activity starts, a fishermen's group expressed concern on its possible effect on the marine life and on their livelihood.

Panaghugpong sa Gagmay'ng Mananagat sa Sugbo had a meeting with energy officials early this month and discussed the exploration activities.

"They (energy officials) should consider that it could have a very big effect to our marine resources, especially our fishermen," said PAMANA-Sugbo chairman Victor Lapaz.

He said that DOE should have dialog or consultations with the local officials and fishermen and inform them of the schedule of the explorations.

"We know that our country needs additional energy sources. We are not against development but they should also look at the fishermen whose only livelihood is fishing," Lapaz added. The exploration would be done by Alcorn Gold Resource Corp., Petro Energy Resource Corp. and the Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp., a consortium of three companies that is based in Manila. Just recently, the DOE announced that about US$94 million in minimum financial resources has been committed for the development of the country's indigenous energy resources as it has signed six petroleum service contracts with foreign and local upstream petroleum companies that would explore possible energy sources in the country. - Wenna A. Berondo