The government may not be able to award new deals under the latest auction of oil and gas exploration contracts within the term of President Benigno Aquino III.
Energy Secretary Zenaida Monsada said the department was still waiting guidance from the Finance Department, adding the 5th Philippine Energy Contracting Round was covered by the election ban.
“We have forwarded it to Finance,” Monsada said.
The PECR aims to secure the country’s energy requirements through oil and gas exploration.
“We’re not sure if he [Aquino] will be able to sign it [prior to stepping down from office],” Monsada said.
She earlier said the awarding of service contracts under PECR 5 had been delayed because the agency “has been encountering problems.”
“What we did, we passed it on to DoF so they can review all the conditions because there were earlier guidelines wherein there is Finance approval of the contracts. They have to endorse the contracts,” Monsada said.
She said after the Finance Department endorsed the contracts, they would be submitted to Malacañang for final approval.
“We will still follow up because we forwarded it to them last year,” Monsada said, referring to the awarding of four service contracts.
Monsada wanted to award the service contracts under PECR 5 in December.
The bid applications were evaluated based on their work program (40 percent), financial qualification (40 percent) and technical qualification (20 percent).
The department blamed the decline in world oil prices to the low turnout for PECR 5, where only 11 oil and gas areas were offered to the private sector for development.
The areas included Area 7 (Recto Bank block) covering 468,000 hectares which received an offer from Colossal Petroleum Corp., an affiliate of listed Coal Asia Holdings Inc. led by businessman Dexter Tiu.
Colossal also submitted a qualifying bid for Area 5 (Northeast Palawan block) covering 576,000 hectares.
Ratio Oil Exploration Ltd., an Israeli company, meanwhile, applied for a service contract in Area 4 (Northeast Palawan Block) covering 416,000 hectares.
The department accepted the offer of Ratio Oil after it submitted complete documentary requirements.
The department, however, disqualified Yulaga Oil ad Exploration Enterprises for incomplete application documents for Area 1 (Ragay Block).
Areas that were offered but did not receive applications include Area 2 (Panay Block), Area 3 (Panay Block), Area 6 (Southwest Palawan block), Area 8 (West Luzon block), Area 9 (West Luzon block), Area 10 (West Luzon block) and Area 11 (West Luzon block).
Areas that did not receive offers will likely be included in the next bidding round.