PGI assumes
new name
By Ronnie Lorejo
Correspondent
TIWI, Albay—After more than 30 years of steam-generation in the
country, the Philippine Geothermal Inc. (PGI), a wholly-owned
subsidiary of the Union Oil of California (Unocal), has changed
its name to Unocal Philippines Inc. (UPI).
The change of the name was announced by Barry Andrews, UPI
president, in a formal ceremony held in the company’s compound
here on Friday night.
With highly trained and dedicated workforce among the most
knowledgeable and experienced in the global geothermal industry,
UPI, according to Andrews, has pioneered in the commercial
development of the country’s geothermal resources in partnership
with the state-owned National Power Corporation (NPC).
He said UPI and NPC developed geothermal resources at the Tiwi
field in Albay province and the Makiling-Banahaw (Mak-Ban) field
in the Laguna and Batangas area. This led to the birth of
geothermal energy in the country.
Andrews said that in their 33 years of partnership with the
Philippine Government, UPI has continuously supplied steam that
provides fuel to the power plants in Tiwi, Albay and in Mak-Ban
in Laguna, which are owned and operated by NPC.
Both plants commenced commercial operations in 1979. Electricity
from the Tiwi and Mak-Ban facilities is supplied to the power
grid of Luzon, the country’s largest and most populous island,
for residential, commercial and industrial uses.
Mak-Ban has an installed capacity of 426 megawatts (MW) while
Tiwi’s current installed capacity is 275MW.
Together, the two power plants produced about 8 percent of the
electricity demand in the main island of Luzon. Andrews said
Unocal is a name they have been proud of, with the company
having operations in Europe and six Asian countries. To date,
the country is the second largest steam producer in the world.
UPI is a fully integrated international energy resources
company. Andrews claimed that during the power crisis in the
1990s, Tiwi and Mak-Ban supplied about 40 percent of the Luzon
power requirements. He also claimed that from 1977 to the
present, geothermal energy saved the Philippine government over
$40 billion in costs associated with the import of fossil fuels.
For the community alone, the UPI has contributed about US$ 5
million or about P275 million to undertake initiatives in the
country. Some of these were the renovation of the Tiwi Rural
Health Unit’s main building and laboratory and the development
of the Naglagbong Geothermal People’s Park in the Tiwi area,
which illustrates the environmental capability of geothermal
operations with the surrounding ecosystem. Tiwi town mayor Jaime
C. Villanueva said, “This change in name will require for us new
awareness while their corporate responsibility has greatly
helped us in our town.”
