THE Malampaya natural- gas facility in Palawan will undergo another maintenance shutdown in July and September this year, but power supply in Luzon will not be affected, the Department of Energy (DOE) said on Wednesday.
On July 15 and 16 engineering works at the offshore platform will be conducted to prepare for the scheduled Pipeline Inspection Guage (PIGing) in August of the 504-kilometer subsea pipeline, which connects the offshore platform to the onshore gas plant in Batangas.
PIGing intends to eliminate accumulated deposits that affects the overall productivity of the facility.
Another two-day maintenance work is scheduled on September 23 and 24 to give way for preventive- maintenance and corrective-maintenance works, which include testing of shutdown valves, emergency depressurization system test and heat-exchanger repair.
For the four-day shutdown in July and September, supply in Luzon won’t be affected because the maintenance works will coincide with the planned shutdowns of First Gas plants, the DOE said. Moreover, the said dates fall on weekends so demand for power is anticipated to be low.
The gas facility fuels the following gas plants: 1,000-megawatt (MW) Santa Rita; 500-MW San Lorenzo; 1,200-MW Ilijan; and 97-MW Avion plant. These power plants supply an aggregate capacity of 3,211 MW to the Luzon grid, with 2,565 MW supplied to the Manila Electric Co.’s franchise area.
The gas plants on scheduled shutdown are two units (250 MW each) of Santa Rita and one unit (250 MW) of San Lorenzo. One unit (600 MW) of Ilijan plant will not be supplied with natural gas on September 23 and 24.
The PIGing activity, which will be concluded for a total of 31 days, will not affect the gas supply.
In August the PIGing activity will involve the 504-km subsea Malampaya gas-export pipeline. It is estimated to last for 21 days in August.
The 10.5-km Tabangao onshore gas plant to the Santa Rita power plant will also undergo PIGing activity for one week in September.
From August 19 to 21, the DOE said there would be another PIGing activity of the 14.6-km Tabangao onshore gas plant to the Ilijan power plant. On these days, 900 MW of the plant’s capacity will be out, the DOE said.
The Malampaya facility underwent a shutdown early this year from January 28 to February 16, which affected the supply of natural gas to the power plants of Ilijan, Santa Rita, San Lorenzo, San Gabriel and Avion.
