Here’s an interesting piece of development in the Philippine Energy Sector. A local company, H&WB Corp, has hired an agent in the US for placement of its $2.8-billion proposed coal liquefaction plant. So far they have garnered about $33 M already for the project. Coal liquefaction is the process of converting coal, via Fischer-Tropsch Method, to other fossil based forms of fuel (gasoline, diesel etc).
H&WB’s proposed facility is designed to output 61,200 barrels/day of fuels and 11,100 barrels/day of LPG. In line with this, it will also have a power plant that can contribute 67.2 megawatts of power for the grid, net of its energy requirement.
With the Mineral Act of 1992 finally being upheld by the Philippine Supreme Court it allowed for the entry of foreign mining firms and their investment money into the country. Definitely without this development you wouldn’t expect to see local companies dreaming up this kind of investments because they basically don’t have the funds to put up this kind facility, let alone have a local source for coal which local mining companies don’t have the funds to dig out of the earth. Here lies the problem of a third world nation, they have the natural resources but lack the funds to develop it.
I never knew that the Philippines had that much coal reserves till I read this little factoid:
A study commissioned in 1977 indicated some 1.5 billion metric tons of geological reserves…the country’s major lignite reserves are in the Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon and in Surigao del Sur, Eastern Mindanao. Sub-bituminous coals occur mainly in Semirara Island north of Panay. The thickness of individual seams normally ranges from a few centimeters, and exceptionally up to 25 meters in Semirara.[source]
My worry however is whether development of this facility will lead to independence from foreign oil? Considering that the money that will be used to setup the facility won’t be sourced locally. The general perception of “foreign funding” in the Philippines is that of money invested in the Philippines by foreign companies equating to profits being exported out of the country and not being circulated in the local economy.
Article here
Category: Coal
