AYALA-LED ENEX Energy Corp. said it will seek partners for its natural gas service contract once the company resumes exploration within the Palawan Basin.
“We continue to explore bringing in the right partner or sponsor to undertake the exploration and development activities once it is possible to do so,” Enex Chairman Eric T. Francia said during the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting last week.
ENEX, formerly ACE Enexor, Inc., is a unit of listed company ACEN Corp. It explores for crude oil and natural gas.
In 2023, ACEN Corp. announced that the Department of Energy (DoE) granted a declaration of force majeure for its unit’s drilling operations within SC 55.
It said the DoE agreed to allow the request of its subsidiary, Palawan55 Exploration and Production Corp., for a force majeure relief due to the “operational and financial risks” associated with drilling operations in the West Philippine Sea.
Petroleum SC 55 is a deep-water block in the southwest Palawan Basin covering an area of 9,880 square kilometers.
The SC 55 in Palawan is estimated to have some 2.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the Energy department said.
Mr. Francia said the country must develop its indigenous energy resources as its only indigenous commercial source of natural gas, the Malampaya gas field is expected to have a declining output.
“The use of (LNG) had begun in order to address the declining output of Malampaya gas. Reliance on imported LNG, however, has put an upward pressure on the cost of fuel and therefore the cost of gas power,” Mr. Francia said.
Further, the company said it is still keen on building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) fired plant in Batangas.
The company’s investee company, the Batangas Clean Energy is currently developing a 1,100 megawatt combined cycle gas turbine project Batangas.
For now the project is awaiting a competitive selection process to secure an offtake contract for the project, Mr. Francia said. — Ashley Erika O. Jose
