Senator Win Gatchalian has filed a Senate resolution seeking to establish the oil and gas potential in the West Philippine Sea and address the country’s dependence on fuel imports for its energy requirements.
On the other hand, Sen. Robin Padilla has high hopes for positive results from oil and gas exploration activities in the Philippines, especially in the WPS.
Gatchalian said his Senate inquiry aims to push exploration, development, and utilization of such oil and gas reserves to achieve national energy security and self-sufficiency.
“Given persistent global energy shocks, it is important for us to ascertain the oil and gas potential in the West Philippine Sea for the country to have some level of stability and protection from the tumultuous geopolitical conflict in foreign countries that has severely impacted local energy prices,” Gatchalian said.
Data from the Department of Energy (DOE) show that as of 2021. there is an estimated 6,203 million barrels of total oil resources and 12,158 billion cubic feet of total gas resources in the WPS.
At present, there are five petroleum service contracts in the West Philippine Sea.
These are Service Contract (SC) 54 held by Nido Petroleum Philippines Pty Ltd. in Offshore Northwest Palawan, SC 58 held by Nido Petroleum in West Calamian or Northwest Palawan, SC 59 held by the Philippine National Oil Company-Exploration Corp. in Southwest Palawan, SC 72 held by Forum (GSEC101) Ltd. in Recto Bank, and SC 75 held by PXP Energy Corp. in Northwest Palawan.
“The lack of oil and gas exploration, as a result of the lack of indigenous oil and gas, has contributed to the country’s import dependence with 98% of petroleum products imported as of 2021 amid the lack of energy self-sufficiency,” Gatchalian noted.
In fact, he said the country’s energy self-sufficiency has gone down from 61.4% in 2011 to 51.15% in 2021.
According to Gatchalian, the adverse effect of dependence on imported fuel was felt recently with the Russian invasion of Ukraine raising global crude oil prices from $50/barrel in January 2021 to $120/barrel in March 2022.
This has resulted in an increase in the pump prices of gasoline from P50/liter to almost P90/liter in June 2022.
Meanwhile, Padilla said he learned of reported discussions for joint exploration with China in the WPS.
“There is no time to lose for the Philippines to discover and exploit such resources due to the possibile shortage of energy supplies in the coming year,” he said.
He added the policy of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that the Philippines will be “friends to all (and) enemy to none” when it comes to foreign policy should be a big help.
Earlier, Padilla asked PNOC Exploration Corp. Vice President for Upstream Jaime Bacud if there was any development about the President’s pronouncement favoring a joint exploration with China.
Bacud said there may be talks on the matter involving the Department of Energy.
The senator disclosed that when he and fellow senators met with Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian recently, one topic was the joint exploration for gas and oil in the West Philippine Sea.
Padilla authored Senate Resolution No. 9 calling on the President to resume discussions for joint oil and gas exploration in the West Philippine Sea.
Padilla said Huang informed them that China would be open to talks about joint exploration in the West Philippine Sea, and that it “will remain ready to coordinate with us to resolve issues there.”
Meanwhile, PNOC President Jesus Posadas said there may be a chance of avenues opening for the Philippines to receive “help” from other countries like Iran when it comes to oil supply.
“It’s the President’s move today that as per his principle of ‘we are friends to everybody and enemies to none,’ I think that will open up a different venue,” said Posadas.