The government may end up shouldering the funding for some components of the natural gas infrastructure as the required capital to develop them may be too big for a private company to undertake, an Energy official said.
“We believe that some portions of the infrastructure required to develop a downstream natural gas industry might have to be shouldered by the national government because the private sector might not be willing to undertake that investment,” said Leonido J. Pulido III, assistant secretary at the Department of Energy (DoE).
Mr. Pulido was referring to the transmission, distribution and supply of natural gas to their power plant consumers — or what is called the downstream industry. He was reacting to a proposed legislation at the Senate that seeks to develop that segment.
Introduced by Senator Francis G. Escudero, Senate Bill 765 ordains the development of the downstream natural gas industry, consolidating for the purpose all laws relating to the transmission, distribution and supply of the fossil fuel.
“What the Senate bill lacks would be to provide for some sort of funding mechanism for very critical, very large scale projects such as pipelines that our third-party investors might not be willing to undertake,” Mr. Pulido said. — Victor Saulon

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