Did you know that the Ilijan Power Plant in Batangas City is the largest electricity-generating facility in the Philippines that uses domestic fuel? The power plant uses natural gas sourced from the Camago-Malampaya gas field located 80 kilometers from Palawan. The natural gas that is extracted is processed offshore near Palawan and is then piped 504 kilometers to the Shell Tabangao Refinery in Batangas City where it is then brought to three nearby power plants of which one is Ilijan. The Malampaya Gas-to-Power project is the first time the Philippines started its natural gas industry and is expected to generate 2,700 megawatts of power for Luzon for around 20 years. This is equivalent to about 25% of the energy requirements of Luzon (if my research is correct). In addition, the Malampaya project is the single biggest foreign direct investment in the Philippines and aims to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

The Ilijan Power Plant is rated at 1,251 (net) megawatts, is owned by Napocor and is operated by the Korea Electric Power Corporation or KEPCO, through a local company called KEPCO Ilijan Corporation (KEILCO). (The two other power plants that uses the Malampaya natural gas are the Sta. Rita (1,000-MW) and San Lorenzo (500-MW) plants, both owned and operated by First Gas Power Corporation, which is controlled by the powerful Lopez family [e.g., Meralco and ABS-CBN].) Construction of the Ilijan Power Plant started on March 15, 1999 and operations commenced on June 5, 2002, about one year after the gas started flowing from Malampaya in October 2001. The plant consists of two 600-MW blocks, each having two 200-MW gas turbines and one 200-MW steam turbine. If you’re interested in further nitty-gritty technical details about the plant, check out this archived article.

Anyway, I’ll try to look for the two remaining power plants of the Malampaya Gas-to-Power project as well as the Shell Refinery so that I can feature them on Vista Pinas in the future.

Download KML file (for Google Earth)