01 · Executive Summary
A national programme for an old, recurring problem.
For half a century, the Philippines has experienced the same energy and food shock approximately every ten to fifteen years — 1973, 1979, 1990, 2022, and now 2026. Each time the trigger has been geopolitical disruption in or near the Middle East. Each time the country, importing the overwhelming majority of its crude oil and the majority of its nitrogen fertilizer through the same shipping corridors, has been among the most exposed economies on earth. Each time the response has been emergency: subsidies, fuel-tax suspensions, fund releases. The structural vulnerability has never been resolved. This Programme proposes to resolve it — not with another emergency mechanism, but with an indigenous, biological, and circular replacement of the most exposed parts of the import bill.
Petroleum import bill
~USD 30B
Combined annual import value of refined petroleum products into the Philippines (diesel, gasoline, LPG, kerosene, jet) at recent pricing.
Fertilizer import bill
~USD 1.1B
2023 nitrogen-dominant fertilizer imports (FPA / PSA). Approximately two-thirds nitrogenous, mostly urea.
Cycles since 1973
5
Major Middle-East-triggered fuel-price shocks since the OPEC Arab oil embargo. The structural cause has not changed.
Programme target horizon
2026 – 2040
A fifteen-year programmatic window aligned with NDC commitments, ADB / WB Country Partnership cycles, and global SAF mandates.
Programme thesis
A single agronomic system — one that combines aquatic biofertilizer (Azolla pinnata), terrestrial woody biomass (Falcataria moluccana and a portfolio of native and naturalised dedicated energy crops), and Brazilian-model sugarcane — can simultaneously displace meaningful fractions of the country's nitrogen-fertilizer imports, supply compressed biomethane in substitution of liquefied petroleum gas, generate domestic biocrude for the country's refining base, and deliver Sustainable Aviation Fuel through three ASTM-aligned pathways. The resulting programme addresses the recurring petroleum and fertilizer cascade at its biological root.
The three pillars
Pillar I · Aquatic
Azolla
Distributed pond and rice-paddy cultivation of Azolla pinnata; biofertilizer for rice systems; co-digested anaerobic conversion to compressed biomethane (CBM); methanol synthesis from CBM; jet-range hydrocarbons via the Methanol-to-Jet (MTJ-SPK) pathway, presently in active ASTM qualification.
Maturity: Mature on biofertilizer + CBM (TRL 8–9); MTJ qualification expected 2026–28 per industry reporting.
Pillar II · Terrestrial
Falcata + dedicated energy crops
Mindanao-anchored falcata plantations plus a complementary portfolio of native and long-naturalised species (bagras, native bamboos, yemane, anabiong, mangium, ipil-ipil, kakawate). Dual conversion: gasification + Fischer-Tropsch (FT-SPK, ASTM D7566 Annex A1, approved) for drop-in SAF; and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) biocrude for refinery co-processing as crude-oil import substitution.
Maturity: Falcata silviculture commercially operational; FT-SPK approved; HTL of woody biomass at TRL 6–7; refinery co-processing under ASTM D1655 provisions.
Pillar III · Cropland
Sugarcane (Brazilian model)
Negros-anchored sugarcane bioenergy expansion, with sweet sorghum as drought-tolerant complement. Mill-cluster bio-refinery: sugar, ethanol, bagasse cogeneration, vinasse anaerobic digestion, biogenic CO2. Ethanol converted to drop-in jet fuel via Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ-SPK), already approved under ASTM D7566 Annex A5.
Maturity: Sugar mill infrastructure operational; ATJ-SPK commercially deployed at LanzaJet's Soperton, Georgia facility (commissioned 2024); the Programme's immediately bankable, drop-in SAF route from day one.
Programme position within DM-XTech Group strategy. The Programme is the third scalability platform of the DM-XTech Group's advanced-fuels architecture. The first two platforms anchor the Group's refinery-scale production capability, while this third platform secures the indigenous, renewable feedstock base that supplies them — closing the loop between domestic biological resources and the Group's ASTM D1655-compliant low-aromatic Jet A-1 product line (tLCAF, zLCAF, DoC Jet A-1), independently validated by the Translational Energy Research Centre (TERC) at the University of Sheffield.
Why now
- The 2026 crisis has demonstrated, again, what fifty years of policy did not resolve. The Strait of Hormuz disruption has cost the country hundreds of millions of pesos in emergency support and put diesel above PHP 130/L. The political window for structural action is now open in a way it has not been since the 1990s.
- ASTM has caught up with bio-feedstock chemistry. Two of the Programme's three SAF pathways are approved D7566 annexes (FT-SPK Annex A1; ATJ-SPK Annex A5), with LanzaJet's commercial ethanol-to-SAF facility operating since 2024. The third (MTJ-SPK) is in active qualification.
- The Group's product line is already validated. Independent testing at the Translational Energy Research Centre, University of Sheffield, demonstrated complete naphthalene elimination, an 80 % reduction in soot mass at idle thrust, and a 40–50 % reduction in soot-particle count at full load — the latter being the contrail-nuclei metric directly addressed by the EU's Regulation 2024/2493 on non-CO2 aviation effects. Full ASTM D1655 certification is maintained at 100 % neat use, with legacy NBR seal compatibility through retained cycloparaffin content.
- The Republic's institutional architecture is already in place. The Sugar Regulatory Administration, the DA's biofertilizer programmes, DENR's industrial tree plantation framework in Mindanao, the Department of Energy's biofuels mandate (RA 9367), and the Renewable Energy Act (RA 9513) provide every legal instrument the Programme requires. No new legislation is necessary to begin.
What the Programme asks for
- An Executive Order designating the Programme as a national initiative for energy, fertilizer, and aviation-fuel sovereignty, with PNOC and PNOC Renewables Corporation reactivated as government implementation partners.
- A NEDA-classified programmatic ICC track, with concessional lending pre-commitments from DBP and LandBank for early-phase deployment.
- An academic-research consortium led by UPLB (Pillars I and II), IRRI and PhilRice (Pillar I extension), DOST-PCAARRD (cross-pillar R&D), and the Sugar Regulatory Administration (Pillar III).
- A climate-finance window through the Climate Change Commission for the carbon-attribute components of the Programme, aligned with the country's Nationally Determined Contribution.
- Development-finance partnership with the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank Group (through IFC) for the rural-development, food-security, and climate-mitigation legs of the Programme.
Read together, what follows is a Programme that begins paying for itself on biofertilizer and biomethane within three to five years; that scales into domestic biocrude and methanol within five to ten; and that delivers all three approved-and-pending SAF pathways on the same agricultural footprint within the country's existing institutional fabric.