PNOC is 49 years old today. It has become an operating company from merely a holding company of surviving and dissolved legacy companies in various segments of the oil industry value chain. The challenge today for all government agencies and GOCCs alike is to adapt to the changing and challenging times for the Philippines vis-à-vis its socio-economic aspirations in the face of global geopolitical realignments, pandemics, climate change, digitalization, 4th industrial revolution, space race, etc. This is true no less for PNOC, PNOC-EC, and PNOC-RC. We have to find our relevance in the interest of the public good in the privatized deregulated energy landscape, be it conventional, renewable or alternative energy resource development; downstream oil, gas, coal; electric power and energy utilization. We should be able to contribute and be part of the solution to the energy transition that the Philippines has signed itself into under the Paris Agreement. This despite the Philippines’ miniscule emissions contribution but inordinate vulnerability to the severe typhoons, sea level rise, droughts brought about by climate change. PNOC will consider RE and energy efficiency in all of its operations, be it in ESB, PIP and their locators or the management here of the BGC/Energy Center buildings. We will welcome locators and lessees who are aligned with the energy transition like the application of a circular petrochemical company converting used polyolefins back to aromatic monomers; conversion of Petron’s waterborne petrochemical feedstock transport to pipeline conveyance. It is not our intention to elicit today corporate responses to the challenges described.
We just want to celebrate the past challenges that have been surmounted and conjure similar resolve when government took the cudgels in the supply disruptions in the 1973-1974 Arab Oil Embargo, 1978-1979 Iranian revolution, Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988 and 1990-1991 Persian Gulf war. We have thereafter been ushered into the privatization and deregulation of the downstream oil industry from 1998 onwards. The future has become increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous which only means we need all the more to be innovative and collaborative with all agencies of government and the private sector to be able to confront the enormous task in front of all of us. In this light, let’s have 3 cheers for PNOC to signify unity and solidarity in facing tomorrow’s challenges!
Happy 49th Anniversary and looking forward to many more decades to come. Thank you.