DoE plans to negotiate bilateral oil supply contracts with 4 countries
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
By MYRNA M. VELASCO
The Department of Energy (DoE) will work on bilateral agreements with at least four countries as part of the government’s strategy to diversify the country’s sources of oil supply.
The bilateral deals being explored are with Indonesia, Russia, Angola and Kazakhstan, according to documents from the energy department that details out its policy plans and agenda over the medium term.
"Strengthening international relations will be a continuing strategy of the government," the DoE documents stated. No specific details were provided though on how the proposed oil bilateral deals will be carried out.
Apart from deals for the oil sector, the DoE will also push for greater collaboration with international partners for the power sector; as well as on the enhanced development of indigenous and renewable energy sources.
"Investment roadshows and energy contracting rounds will be intensified to spur energy resource development and facilitate the sale and privatization of the power sector assets," the energy department emphasized.
The array of energy agreements recently firmed up by the government include that of the Joint Seismic Undertaking among Philippine National Oil Company, China National Offshore Oil Corporation and PetroVietnam to explore oil and gas prospects off China sea; and the memorandum of understanding (MoU) inked with the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.
Meanwhile, the DoE revealed that it will now use ton-of-oil-equivalent (TOE) in place of the barrel-of-fuel-oil equivalent (BFOE) as a unit of measurement in updating the Philippine Energy Plan. It said that this is in conformance to internationally accepted standards.
In the energy planning methodology since the 70s, the BFOE has been employed as a reference of measurement; but the proposed adjustment became necessary as most economies already shifted to TOE for energy accounting.
Such new unit of measurement is already widely employed in the reportorial requirements of key economic and regional groupings such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The energy department will similarly adopt statistical application shift in the energy accounting for electricity generated from geothermal sources.
The DOE said it will apply the 10 percent thermal efficiency for geothermal energy in accordance with the recommendation of the IEA, which is also consistent with the experience of the domestic power industry.
"The changes in energy accounting affect the data on geothermal and biomass in the country’s energy mix," the department stated.
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