Energy

With large, easily accessible oil and gas discoveries long since picked over, a continued decline in petroleum production has encouraged a heavy reliance on foreign imports. While new exploration blocks offered up in 2013 could provide potential for more technically challenging opportunities in the coming years, the majority of the coveted offshore areas remain off-limited due to acrimonious territorial disputes. Exploration in new, primarily frontier areas could mitigate the country’s increasing reliance on foreign energy sources to some degree. As the Philippines, along with the rest of the global energy market as a whole, shifts its energy priorities away from crude oil and towards cleaner, more plentiful natural gas, the Department of Energy has set out a road map to establish a new network of gas pipelines to transport gas around Luzon from 2017 to 2022.

This chapter contains interviews with Edgar O Chua, Country Chairman, Shell Companies in the Philippines; and Francis Giles B Puno, President & COO, First Gen Corporation.