LOPEZ-LED First Gen Corp. targets to complete the repair of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) ship by September before deciding to reorder another supply cargo, its president said.
“Right now, the LNG ship is going through repair in Subic… at the same time, we’re also doing the punch list or remaining items in the interim offshore terminal,” First Gen Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Francis Giles B. Puno said on the sidelines of a forum on Aug. 14.
“Hopefully, by mid-September, (operations) will have returned to normal,” he added.
In the meantime, Mr. Puno said that power plants can still operate on the residual gas from the Malampaya gas field, the country’s sole natural gas provider.
“When we’re doing repairs, you cannot do so with gas still inside. We have to empty out the gas and then proceed with the repair. Once it’s ready, then we can consider reordering,” he said.
In June, First Gen awarded Japanese company TG Global Trading Co. a contract to supply one LNG cargo of approximately 125,000 cubic meters, with delivery scheduled for July.
The LNG cargo was supposed to be unloaded into the storage tanks of the BW Batangas floating storage and regasification unit that should be berthed at the First Gen Clean Energy Complex in Batangas City.
FGEN LNG Corp., a subsidiary of First Gen, constructed an interim offshore LNG terminal and executed a five-year time charter party for BW Batangas to provide LNG storage and regasification services.
First Gen utilizes LNG for its existing gas-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 2,017 megawatts, which have been supplied for many years with gas from the Malampaya field. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera
