The Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) may bid out of the development of the $2-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal if no qualified proposals meet the December 31 deadline.
“If there are no companies that can qualify for the requirements by December 31, we will have to bid out the project and it will no longer be an unsolicited process,” PNOC president Ruben Lista said.
The company’s technical working group (TWG) that handles the unsolicited proposals for the LNG project has rejected the first two offers from Korea Electric Power (KEPCO) and the consortium of Lloyds Energy Group and Itochu Corp.
But the companies can still reapply their proposals and other firms can still make offers to the TWG until the end of the year.
PNOC, meanwhile, reminded the China National Offshore Oil. (CNOOC) to submit its proposal that was first sent to the Department of Energy (DOE), Lista said.
The parameters of the proposal will be set by the PNOC’s consultant which has yet to be secured, the official said.
“We are not technically qualified even if we’ve been studying LNG for a year. That’s why we’re tapping ADB. They submitted offer last Friday. We’re still in negotiations so there’s nothing final yet,” Lista said.
The PNOC was tasked to establish an integrated LNG hub with storage, liquefaction, regasification, and distribution facility, and a reserve initial power plant capacity of 200 megawatts (MW).
The Philippine government has been accepting unsolicited bids for the LNG project following the fell through of government-to-government (G2G) partnerships.