First Gen Corp. plans to boost its geothermal business, with a planned bid for state-owned National Power Corp.’s (Napocor) production fields Federico Lopez, First Gen president, said the company is interested in acquiring Napocor’s production fields, which are run by Energy Development Corp. (EDC).
First Gen owns EDC through Red Vulcan.

“We are looking at areas where we are right now. We are eying maybe BacMan [Bacon-Manito] power plants and Unified Leyte geothermal plants’ independent power producer administrator [IPPA],” Lopez said.

The country’s largest geothermal energy producer, EDC runs the BacMan and Unified Leyte production fields in Sorsogon and Leyte, respectively. The BacMan field provides steam to a power plant run by Napocor while the Unified Leyte houses several EDC-owned plants contracted by the state-owned power firm.

State-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (Psalm) will sell those geothermal facilities next year.

“We’re looking at achieving [sale of] 70 percent [of] IPPA by first quarter of 2010. Whether Unified Leyte will be part of that is subject of evaluation,” Conrad Tolentino, PSALM vice president for asset management and electricity trading, said.

The privatization of at least 70 percent of Napocor’s contracted output with third-party suppliers is the last requirement under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 before open access can start in the sector.

Under this regime, end-users can choose their supplier.

First Gen is the country’s largest independent power producer with a total installed capacity of 2,582.40 megawatts, over 90 percent of which uses renewable and indigenous energy sources.
First Gen’s shares closed flat on Friday at P16.75 per share.

EDC’s shares closed lower at P4.10 per share from its previous close of P4.15 per share.

Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo