Philippine energy market, first quarter 2022

The first quarter of 2022 was the last quiet one for prices. Real GDP grew 8.3% year on year against a locked-down base, inflation was still inside the target band, and the policy rate had not moved from its pandemic floor. Fuel, on the other hand, had already turned: the invasion of Ukraine in late February took crude and thermal coal to levels the Philippine grid had not paid before.

This edition of the quarterly market brief covers January to March 2022. Compiled in September 2026 from the releases of the time, with the revisions the agencies have published since. Nothing here is a forecast.

Growth came off a locked-down base

Real GDP grew 8.3% year on year, the strongest print of the recovery, against a first quarter of 2021 that had been under restrictions for most of its length. Household consumption and construction carried it. The base effect, not new demand, is most of the number.

Inflation was inside the band, and about to leave it

Headline inflation was 3.0% in January, 3.0% in February and 4.0% in March, at the top of the 2 to 4% band by the end of the quarter. The policy rate stayed at 2.00%, where it had been since November 2020. Both moved in the quarter that followed.

Fuel repriced in three weeks

Dubai crude averaged about 96 dollars a barrel across the quarter, and Australian thermal coal about 230 dollars a tonne, roughly double its level a year earlier. For a plant buying coal or diesel, the change came in the second half of February and was not reversed.

The auction programme had not started

The Green Energy Auction Program was in preparation through the quarter; the first round opened in June. The Renewable Portfolio Standards and the Green Energy Option remained the routes to a renewable offtake in the meantime.

What it meant for a plant

A site burning imported coal saw its fuel bill double while its electricity tariff had not yet caught up, and a site burning its own residue saw nothing change. That gap is the whole argument for a fuel a plant already controls, and it opened in this quarter rather than in the ones that made the headlines.

If you run a fuel-fired boiler or produce an organic residue, an energy and waste audit turns a quarter like this one into your own numbers. Tell us about your site and an engineer replies with the data we need. The other editions are filed under the quarterly market brief.