The Department of Energy (DOE)

says that six international companies and three local firms have submitted applications for Petroleum Service Contracts in the 1st Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Conventional Energy Bid Round and the 2024 Philippine Bid Round.

“We are very pleased that well-known international players in hydrogen and petroleum exploration and production have shown interest and participated in this year’s bid round,” said Energy Undersecretary Alessandro Sales. 

In a statement, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources, and Energy (MENRE) announced that they received applications for PDA-BP-1 (Cotabato Basin), PDA-BP-2 (Sulu Sea Basin), and PDA-BP-3 (Sulu Sea Basin). 

After an initial completeness check, all applications were deemed qualified for further substantive evaluation.

In the 2024 Philippine Bid Round, Sales noted that the DOE has advanced five applications for Service Contracts related to native hydrogen exploration in Central Luzon. Three of these applications target PDA-PH-1, while the other two focus on PDA-PH-2. 

Following an initial review, all submissions were also deemed complete and have moved forward to the substantive evaluation phase.

This bid round has attracted a record number of qualified applications for predetermined areas, surpassing the submissions in both the Philippine Energy Contracting Round (PECR) 5 in 2015 and the Philippine Conventional Energy Contracting Program’s (PCECP) 2018-2019 offering. 

The full legal, technical, and financial evaluation of al

l qualified applications is set to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2024. The top-ranked applicants from this process will have their service contracts recommended to the Office of the President for approval and signing.