NON-RENEWABLE energy resources accounted for 0.464% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019, down from 0.524% a year earlier, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) energy accounts data.
The non-renewable energy resources segment includes coal, oil, natural gas, and condensate.
The economic share of the non-renewable segment was 0.04% in 2000.
The estimates were based on “resource rent” — the value of extracted resources less extraction costs.
Oil accounted for 0.131% of non-renewable energy resource rent as a percentage of GDP in 2019, followed by natural gas and condensate resources with 0.128% and coal at 0.078%.
Over the 20-year period, oil had an average share of 0.193%, followed by natural gas and condensate resources with 0.184% and coal at 0.055%.
The life of the country’s coal resource was estimated at 26 years in 2019, down from 32 in 2018.
Asset life is defined as the ratio of the closing stocks of Class A “commercially recoverable reserves” to the volume of extraction.
Oil had an estimated asset life of 43 years in 2019, up from 27 in 2018.
The asset life of natural gas was estimated at seven years in 2019 from eight in 2018.
For condensate, the estimated asset life was nine years in 2019 compared with 10 in 2018.
In an e-mail, Security Bank Corp. Chief Economist Robert Dan J. Roces noted that the energy sector faces the “dual challenge” of heavy reliance on non-renewables and an “increasingly heavier energy demand.”
“A push for higher GDP growth — which is a constant target albeit derailed by the pandemic — should drive energy demand higher as both go hand in hand. Thus, there is a need to source diversified sources of fuel to include renewables as demand increases,” Mr. Roces said in an e-mail.
“[A]n energy supply mix should provide this diversification and also support climate-change mitigation strategies while still contributing to GDP,” he added.
The closing stock of coal amounted to 572.21 million metric tons in 2019, valued at P139.15 billion.
Last year’s oil reserves amounted to 97.78 million barrels, equivalent to P250.97 billion.
Natural gas reserves were estimated at 1.35 trillion cubic feet, valued at P121.19 billion.
Condensate reserves totaled 33.08 million last year, valued at P143.36 billion. — Jobo E. Hernandez
