Cebu’s coal mines can produce natural gas for vehicles – DOE

The coal mines in Cebu have the potential to produce natural gas, which could be used as alternative fuel for the transport sector, according to energy officials.

Energy officials have seen Cebu’s potential to produce natural gas that could be used for the transport sector to mitigate the effects of soaring prices of fuel products.

Zenaida Monsada, director of the Oil Industry and Management Bureau of the Department of Energy, said natural gas can be extracted from the coal mines located in Toledo City and Danao City.

Monsada, who was one of the speakers during the regional consultation on the Philippine Energy Plan held in Cebu City the other day, explained that gas from these mines can be used as alternative fuel to make vehicles, particularly buses, run.

The plan however is still unclear now due to lack of technology to develop it, she said as she explained to the Cebuanos about the possibility of making the buses here run on compressed natural gas (CNG) similar to those in Batangas and Laguna provinces now.

There are now 22 CNG-run buses plying the Batangas-Laguna-Manila route, and the DOE said it intends to increase the number in the coming years.

Monsada said the project was first implemented in Luzon because of proximity; the gas is extracted from the Malampaya gas wells in Palawan and compressed at a mother station in Batangas and transported to the Biñan daughter-filling station in Laguna.

The DOE said vehicles using natural gas as fuel emit less toxic gases and particles such as carbon monoxide, lead and sulfur.

Alejandro Oanes, head of the DOE’s Geothermal and Coal Energy Resource Development Bureau, in his presentation during the regional consultation in Cebu City on the Philippine Energy Plan held the other day, also said that Central Visayas has a coal resource potential of 170 million metric tons, most of which are from Cebu.

Oanes said there are now four existing coal operating contracts in Cebu while four others are still under construction. The DOE has also awarded 10 small-scale mining permits to different mining operators in Cebu.

Aside from coal that these coal mines produce, they also generate methane gas that could be an efficient fuel, Oanes said, adding that the mines located in Boljoon, Argao, Dalaguete, Talisay City, Danao City have coal-bed methane that are potential natural gas resource. — Wenna A. Berondo/RAE