Philippines: DOE, Ex-Im Bank Sign LNG Financing Deal

The Philippines’ Department of Energy (DOE) and the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank of the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Wednesday for $1-billion worth of financing guarantees to further facilitate renewable energy (RE) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) industries in the Philippines.

In particular, the DOE and Ex-Im will work together in promoting business development opportunities on renewable energy and LNG facilities including port, receiving terminals, regasification facilities, pipelines and other transportation infrastructures, the DOE said in a statement.

Currently, the DOE is formulating a fuel mix policy that would encourage energy diversification that is cleaner and sustainable including RE and LNG. By 2030, the DOE also targets 9,930 megawatts increase in the country’s RE capacity.

For LNG, the DOE pushes for the development of a Natural Gas Master Plan with the technical assistance from the World Bank through its transaction advisors the Lantau Group and Arup. Conducted in three phases, the phase 1 and 2 of the plan will be on the establishment of an investment and transactional framework, of which Phase 1 was already completed, and Lantau is now working on the Phase 2 of the study. The Phase 3 will involve the creation of a Master Plan for the longer term.