Shift to natural gas

BARCELONA – While attending the 30th edition of the Gastech exhibition and conference being held here, the CNN kept us abreast about the onslaught back home in the Philippines of super typhoon “Ompong.” Called by its international name Mangkhut, Ompong was the strongest typhoon to hit our country this year. We had a smooth flight though when we left Manila for Spain last Friday night while Ompong has yet to make landfall in the Philippines.

As earlier feared, it left a swathe of destruction in Central and Northern Luzon’s food basket provinces of Cagayan and Benguet, before it exited the Ilocos region and moved out toward  the South China Sea. Aside from the agriculture sector – not to mention loss of lives and properties – the strength of winds and rains unleashed by “Ompong” cut power supply in the affected areas, including Metro Manila.

As of this writing, the Department of Energy (DOE) reported all circuit outages are completely restored in the serviced areas of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco). Quoting the Meralco report to them, the DOE noted there are still 15,000 to 20,000 customers, or 0.23 percent to 0.30 percent of its total customers undergoing restoration.

Latest reports from the Task Force on Energy Resiliency (TFER) led by the DOE indicated that power supply has been restored in seven provinces hit by typhoon Ompong. These are Pangasinan, Batanes, Batangas, Laguna, Nueva Ecija, Quirino and Zambales.

Except for Batanes, the same provinces are the hosts of many big power plants that supply electricity in Luzon. Thus, it was not surprising that the electricity services were immediately restored because some of the big power plants, especially the base-load plants run by First Gen are easy start-up in case of disruption caused by a strong typhoon like Ompong.

Around 2,017 megawatt (MW) of power are supplied from four plants operated by First Gen Clean Energy Complex in Batangas City, namely, the 1,000 MW Sta. Rita and the 500 MW San Lorenzo combined cycle natural gas-fired power plants; the 420 MW San Gabriel and 97 MW Avion open cycle natural gas-fired power plants.

The Lopez-owned natural gas portfolio delivers 12.2 percent of the country’s gross generation last year alone.

The First Gen cites “the flexibility of these gas plants makes them crucial and complementary to the growing intermittent sources of energy as the world transforms to a full renewable energy (RE) future.” The company prides itself in the promotion of the use of natural gas as a clean, reliable and competitively priced fuel source.

In the case of First Gen, they source their natural gas directly from the Malampaya gas field in the West Philippine Sea. The gas is transmitted through a subsea pipeline to Batangas where First Gen plants use it to generate the electricity reaching all the way to homes and establishments in Metro Manila and the rest of serviced areas in Luzon.

Aside from being a clean source of energy, natural gas adapts better to the fluctuating energy and typhoon or other events that disrupt power supply leading to blackouts. The DOE’s Natural Gas Roadmap (2017-2040), in fact, has plans of making natural gas “the preferred fuel by all end-use sectors” by 2040.

Natural gas emits approximately 60 percent less carbon dioxide than coal. The electricity it generates has no by-products like ash, sludge and particulate matters suspended on air that can cause harmful effects to people’s health.

However, the natural gas supply situation in our country faces a dire future with the projected depletion of the Malampaya gas field by 2024. Definitely, there is a long waiting time for a new natural gas discovery in the West Philippine Sea, especially around the disputed overlapping maritime territories with other claimant countries in South China Sea. Unless a joint seismic exploration agreement is reached, it would be a long shot to have a new source of natural gas on stream any time sooner than desired.

If no new source of natural gas in the Philippines is developed and come on stream sooner than 2024 of the DOE’s Roadmap, the next viable option is to import liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Attending the three-day Gastech conference being held here in the cosmopolitan capital city of Spain’s Catalonia region, we found out the growing number of sellers and buyers in the gas industry is dramatically changing the energy landscape on a global scale. The opening ceremony of Gastech 2018 launching last Monday here was led no less by His Royal Majesty King Felipe VI of Spain.

The strong personal show of support by the Spanish King to the holding of this event – still having its political turmoil of carving its own independent Republic out of Spain – turned a little comic. Without giving any speech or opening remarks, King Felipe was ceremonially made to affix his signature digitally over a notepad. While the King’s signing was being flashed over a panoramic-wide screen at the stage, the digital pen was not cooperating. The 50-year-old King took in stride the foul-up and simply went on with his ceremonial endorsement of the Gastech.

The conference here brought global players in the gas industry in the search for transitioning to this much cleaner and cheaper fuel but more reliable source of power than RE power from solar and wind energy. With the climate change phenomenon, our being a typhoon-prone country makes us always vulnerable to interrupted electricity supply as we have experienced anew for the nth time with super typhoons like Ompong. Thus, natural gas is the fuel of choice for energy security not just in the Philippines but in the world.

At the Gastech exhibits, we saw the latest state-of-the-art natural gas and LNG plants from the United States, Spain, Germany, other European nations, and even from Middle East countries like Qatar which is now one of the world’s biggest producers and sellers of LNG. At the opening day of the conference here, top executives from the biggest producers of natural gas and LNG – each given only two minutes to speak – gave us a glimpse of the growth drivers for the global gas industry.

But the more interesting insights were those made by Zou Caineng, vice president of PetroChina research institute of petroleum exploration and development. An academician, Zou was explicit to underscore China’s every intention to fully tap the huge natural gas deposits to decarbonize from years of use of coal and oil that seriously polluted their country’s environment. Zou said the government of China wants to reduce its consumption from the present 61 percent carbon as primary energy source.

From what I understood from the translator, Zou believes the shift to the use of natural gas and LNG “will occupy 35 percent” of China’s total consumption. But that led me to thinking, where would China source its shift to natural gas deposits? I dread to speculate.