Cusi Says DOE not Involved in SPEX, Chevron’s Choice of Udenna as Malampaya Shares Deal Buyer

Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Alfonso Cusi stands firm in saying that the energy department is not in any way involved in choosing the buyer of shares in the Shell, Chevron-Udenna Malampaya gas field shares deal.

Cusi further added that the process in choosing the buyer to sell the shares followed global standards.

This comes as the energy chief said in an online program of the Daily Tribune that the agency did not get involved in the sale of shares but only had an inquiry on why Chevron Malampaya LLC and Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. (SPEX) chose Udenna Corp. instead of other big companies.

“The DOE does not get involved in the sale (of shares). We don’t know that they are selling. Our question was what their standards are for choosing Udenna. Why you didn’t choose the big companies and why Udenna?,” Cusi said during the said online program.

This is the latest development in the controversial sale of shares of the Malampaya gas field where Chevron Malampaya LLC sold their 45 percent shares to Uy’s Udenna Corp. on March 2020.

The following year, SPEX also sold their shares of 45 percent to Uy, effectively making Uy the 90 percent owner of the gas field that supplies 40 percent of Luzon’s energy demands once the Shell deal acquisition concludes at the end of this year.

The remaining 10 percent of the Malampaya gas field ownership goes to the state-company Philippine National Oil Co. Exploration Corp.

The deals have since been a subject of a senate inquiry, withPhilippine Senate Committee on Energy Chairman Senator Sherwin Gatchalian calling transaction a “midnight deal.”

A formal graft complaint was also slapped against Cusi, and Dennis Uy by concerned citizens over the deal, saying that the energy chief, along with other persons involved, “conspired” to give Uy the advantage in the said controversial deal.

Complaint Attorney Rodel Rodis called the Malampaya sale “the most incredible crony agreement” in history, and added that the sale will have cost the Philippine government P138 billion, which is 17 times larger than the also controversial Pharmally deal of P8 billion. (GFB)