MANILA, Philippines — San Miguel Corp.’s 1,200- megawatt (MW) Ilijan gas-fired power plant in Batangas is poised to resume operations soon with the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in the country ready for commissioning.
SMC president and CEO Ramon Ang said AG&P’s Philippines LNG import terminal, called PHLNG, is set to start commissioning.
Ang said the gas to be delivered by the terminal could already power the 1,200-MW Ilijan plant.
“So in a month it will be up and running, the 1,200 MW first, and then by next year, the additional 1,300 MW capacity,” Ang said.
“That will be a total 2,500 MW additional capacity,” he said.
SMC, through Excellent Energy Resources Inc. (EERI), is constructing a 1,300-megawatt (MW) LNG combined cycle plant in Batangas City.
Asked if the 1,200 MW capacity of the existing Ilijan plant would make it in time for the summer months, Ang said: “Hopefully. We are in a hurry.”
Sources, meanwhile, said the Philippines would receive its first LNG cargo in mid-April.
This will be used to commission the AG&P’s terminal, which will be the country’s first operational LNG import terminal.
In turn, the LNG power generation from SMC’s 1200-MW Ilijan power plant is expected to significantly augment the net dependable capacity of the country in the face of a rapidly increasing demand post-pandemic, the sources said.
AG&P’s import terminal will store LNG and dispatch natural gas to power plants, industrial and commercial customers, as well as other consumers.
Last year, AG&P successfully converted a 137,512 cubic meter LNG carrier into a floating storage unit (FSU).
To be docked at the PHLNG facility, the FSU is part of the combined offshore-onshore import terminal that will have an initial capacity of five million tons per annum.
With the need to procure its own natural gas supply, San Miguel Global Power Holdings Corp. earlier executed a binding term sheet covering terminal use agreements (TUA) for the use of the LNG terminal by subsidiaries South Premiere Power Corp. and Excellent Energy Resources, which is intended to provide regasified LNG and storage solutions to the Ilijan power plant and the upcoming Batangas combined cycle power plant.
The TUA will allow terminal customers to receive, store and regasify LNG from the global market through AG&P’s LNG import terminal.
AG&P’s is one of the seven LNG terminal projects approved by the Department of Energy.
The other projects are those of FGEN LNG Corp., Energy World Gas Operations Philippines Inc., Excelerate Energy L.P., Vires Energy Corp., Shell Energy Philippines Inc., and Samat LNG Corp.