AN official of Shell Philippines Exploration BV (SPEX) is strongly campaigning for transparency and accountability to unlock further the country’s indigenous resources.
“We need a balance of transparency and competitiveness. The key to enhancing the competitiveness of the country and sustainability amid a fast-growing economy and population is to promote transparency and accountability,” SPEX Managing Director Sebastian Quiniones said.
Quiniones, who leads the oil and gas sector in the multistakeholder group of the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PH-EITI), said partnerships play a key role in the Philippine extractive industries.
“We in the oil and gas sector, a nascent industry in the Philippines, want to ensure that as we mature, we do it in partnership with all stakeholders for the good of our world and our people. Hence, we give PH-EITI our full and wholehearted support,” Quiniones said. The EITI is a global standard of transparency that requires extractive industries such as oil, gas and mining, to publish what they pay to the government and the government to likewise publish what they collect from the said industries.
Companies in the extractive industries that have signed on the PH-EITI accounted for at least P35 billion in government revenue in 2012. The total was generated by 30 mining companies and six oil and gas firms, which submitted their tax data and other information to the PH-EITI.
Broken down, mining companies contributed P6.3 billion in revenue while oil and gas companies remitted P29.01 billion.
The PH-EITI was formed through President Aquino’s Executive Order (EO) 147 signed on November 26, 2013. The EO created the PH-EITI multistakeholder group, which is mandated to complete the country’s requirements to become a member of the industry’s global transparency initiative.
SPEX is the upstream company of Shell in the Philippines in charge of operating the Malampaya Deep Water Gas-to-Power Project that supplies 30 percent of the country’s energy needs with cleaner-burning natural gas.
Shell, as a global leader in power, energy, and gas technology, is working to meet increasing energy demand and supply challenges by delivering smarter products and cleaner energy, smarter infrastructure, promoting smarter use and by developing new energy sources while addressing the impact on the environment, through advanced fuels and lubricants technology and unlocking sources of cleaner burning-natural gas.
SPEX also implements the Malampaya Phases 2 and 3 projects, which are part of Malampaya’s original field development plan, to sustain the level of natural gas being extracted from the reservoir for electricity production.