The Department of Energy and PNOC Exploration Corp. asked the Supreme Court to resolve the legal bottlenecks in the oil and gas exploration industry in order to secure future energy supply amid the continued decline of Malampaya natural gas reserves.
Energy officials and PNOC-EC executives pushed for the immediate resolution of the legal challenges pertaining to upstream explorations to find the next gas field that can equal Service Contract 38, or the Malampaya gas project in northwest Palawan.
“We have to re-emphasize that everything goes together: legal, executive and judicial. We are pushing for the expansion of exploration areas. We are making it more attractive to investors. At the end of the day, the judiciary will be the judge,” Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella said in a virtual forum organized by the Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines.
“There are challenges regarding the legal processes that we have. We are looking at a very good prospect. What is preventing us are legal aspects with our laws and regulations,” PNOC-EC president Rozzano Briguez said.
The Malampaya consortium led by Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. has a pending case before the SC for the income taxes questioned by the Commission on Audit. Aside from Spex, other consortium members are PNOC EC with 10-percent stake and Udenna Corp. with 45 percent.
The Malampaya project continues to provide fuel up to 20 percent of the country’s electricity. It has generated over $12 billion worth of revenues remitted directly to the Philippine government, making it one of the country’s most successful public-private-partnership.
Malampaya’s gas reserves are expected to be depleted by 2024, which shows the need to discover and develop new energy sources soon.