The Department of Energy (DOE) Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella said that maintenance work on the Malampaya project is set to prepare for pipeline inspection gauge activities (pigging) of the 504-kilometer subsea pipeline connecting the offshore platform to onshore power plants in Batangas.
Maintenance work of the gas-to-power project is scheduled on July 15 and 16, the DOE official said in a briefing on June 20.
The pigging procedure is allotted a total of 21 days in August and allows for the inspection of the current state of its pipelines and intends to eliminate accumulated deposits, affecting the overall productivity of the facility.
The 21-day pigging activities will not result in any shutdown or gas restriction from the Malampaya project, Fuentebella said.
In turn, a single unit of the operations of the Santa Rita Combined-Cycle Natural Gas-Fired Power Plant (250 MW) will be affected by the maintenance and is expected to simultaneously shut down on the appointed July dates.
Moreover, another maintenance schedule is planned on September 23 and 24, this time covering the preventive and corrective maintenance works including testing of shutdown valves and emergency depressurization system tests while the corrective maintenance activities will cover the heat exchanger repair.
The second part of the maintenance shutdown is also expected to affect operations of not one, but three power plants namely the Ilijan Combined-Cycle Power Plant (600 MW), San Lorenzo Combined-Cycle Gas-Fired Power Plant (250 MW) and again, the Santa Rita plant.
Fuentebella said that both maintenance work will not cause any power supply interruption in the Luzon grid.
Power demand is also anticipated to be low as the maintenance was timed to coincide with the planned shutdowns and during the weekend, he said.
