MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that the Philippines has not yet reached an oil importation deal with Russia, citing geopolitical factors and other complexities that continued to shape discussions between the two countries.
Speaking to reporters in Kazan, Russia on Thursday, Marcos said that negotiations on a possible long-term petroleum supply arrangement remained ongoing.
"In terms of energy that there have been no firm agreements, but merely an understanding that we will continue to develop what we had already started in as a response to the oil crisis that was the effect of the war in the Middle East which we are hoping will come to an end soon," Marcos said.
"I can say that President Putin, the Russian Federation's – the government has – was very – was very open to any kind of suggestion that we do increase that engagement and that we look further into supplying – getting our supplies of petroleum products from Russia," he added.
Marcos said the Philippines has been sourcing petroleum products from Russia on an "ad hoc basis" since the onset of the global oil crisis triggered by the war in the Middle East in February.
"There was no real system in place. Now we are beginning to put that system in place and I think it will be very good for the Philippines to have another assured lifeline when it comes to petroleum products," he said.
Even if war does come to an end, the President said the government would continue to look for "non-traditional" partners in terms of the supply of petroleum products.
"Should anything like this happen again, we don't know if the supply will again be suddenly be cut, but now we have many more options than we did before," he added.
