Latest. The Philippines moved first on Saturday. Its state oil and gas exploration company, PNOC-EC, signed separate letters of intent with Indonesia’s Interport Mandiri Utama and the Shell Company of Thailand Limited on the sidelines of the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in Manila, ahead of the ASEAN Summit that Manila begins hosting on Sunday. The projects, with the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia and the Indonesian Business Council as knowledge partners, will explore oil ticketing and the potential use of existing oil storage facilities in Indonesia and Thailand to support Philippine supply security in an emergency, ERIA said. A ticketing arrangement lets a participant pay for the right to access oil held in another country’s storage, without building its own facilities or buying stocks in advance; ERIA said the system, used in the European Union and elsewhere, would be the first of its kind in ASEAN, and Nikkei reported that Laos and East Timor are considering taking part. The Philippines imports 98 percent of its oil from the Gulf and was the first country to declare a national energy emergency, in March, in response to the war on Iran.
ASEAN has agreed to set up a joint crude oil stockpiling scheme in response to the supply disruption from the war in Iran, with storage sites in Indonesia and Thailand from which member countries would draw oil in times of tight supply, Reuters reported. Withdrawals would run on a ticket system, under which members pay an advance fee to reserve the right to buy a set volume of oil or fuel from storage operated by another member’s energy company, and the Philippines has asked to be the first to use it, buying gasoline and diesel from the Indonesian and Thai sites in a supply emergency.
The initiative came from Indonesia and has strong support from Japan, which is almost entirely dependent on imported energy, Reuters reported. No volumes, funding amounts or start date were reported.