“Operating an offshore gas field is as complex as building the infrastructure”
The Malampaya gas field off northwest Palawan is an engineering feat, even before it started producing energy for the Philippines. Today’s generation may not even realize it but the massive production platform of Malampaya was built to float, and towed from Subic to offshore Palawan.
A team of over 1,400 Filipino workers took about two years to build the production platform at the Keppel Shipyard in Subic, Zambales. Fabrication was completed with an impressive safety record of 11.8 million safe man hours.
Located 43 meters deep on a prepared seabed, the Malampaya platform had to be configured to support 4,900 tons of facilities with enough stability to withstand extreme storm conditions and seismic events. Its platforms are designed to withstand typhoons and earthquakes that the Philippines often experiences.
Operating an offshore gas field is as complex as building the infrastructure. Industry experts had to be tapped to ensure the long-term success of Malampaya’s multi-year exploration and development programs. Prime Energy Resources Development BV (Prime Energy) of tycoon Enrique Razon Jr. early this year created an advisory council composed of technical experts and key industry leaders to oversee the field’s operations and extend its lifespan.
“Backed by technical experts and specialist contractors from around the globe, Prime Energy is well-equipped to plan and execute viable projects to extract more gas from reservoirs in the Service Contract 38 area covering the Malampaya project and tie these to the existing operating assets,” Prime Energy said in an earlier statement.
Prime Energy is a subsidiary of Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc., Razon’s infrastructure arm that focuses on building assets to support urgent sustainability priorities, such as energy, access to clean water, waste management and other viable critical infrastructure.
The energy unit is a natural gas exploration and development company that owns a 45-percent operating interest in Service Contract 38, or the Malampaya deep water gas-to-power project. Malampaya is the only indigenous gas source in the country.
Prime Energy this early is ably managing the operations of Malampaya. It topped its target output for the months of April, May and June this year following efficient maintenance activities and kept the integrity of equipment in the Malampaya Deep Water Gas-to-Power project.
Prime Energy has seamlessly worked with its Malampaya partners—UC38 LLC and state-owned Philippine National Oil Co.—in sustaining its corporate social responsibility and focusing on safety, and integrity.
It retained an all-Filipino team that has been running Malampaya for more than 20 years and added more Filipino experts to run the operation.
Allowed to operate Malampaya until 2039, Prime Energy has received the green light to run its engine at full throttle and harness this dependability to carve a self-sufficient energy future for the Filipino.
Since it began operations in 2001, the Malampaya project has produced cleaner-burning natural gas that supplies four power plants in Luzon, the country’s largest island, with a combined capacity of 3,200 megawatts.
Malampaya provides benefits to the country in several ways, including reducing oil imports, ensuring a more stable supply of cleaner energy from an indigenous resource and meeting up to 20 percent of the country’s energy requirements.
Prime Energy has also committed to continue producing economy-enhancing indigenous gas to keep the present stable and develop new gas wells near the Malampaya field to bring a secure energy future.
Malampaya’s operating record, meanwhile, is immaculate. For 22 years, Malampaya has been successfully implementing its Goal Zero campaign―no accidents and leaks across all Malampaya operations. Prime Energy is striving to hold this safety record aloft.
Prime Energy is not limiting itself to the professional operation of Malampaya. It is performing tasks consistent with its corporate social responsibility goals of connecting to the community. Its most recent voluntary effort to help in the Mindoro oil spill cleanup was barely mentioned in the news.
It played a key role in hastening the cleanup work of the Philippine Coast Guard, which found its job easier with oil spill cleanup materials supplied by the company, and extended food to volunteers and villagers reeling from the environmental accident.
Prime Energy, it seems, is a complete package poised to run along with our economic growth story and sustainable development goals.
E-mail: rayenano@yahoo.com or extrastory2000@gmail.com
