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THE government has boosted its bid to privatize the
first geothermal power plant in its hold, the Tiwi-MakBan facility,
with the sweetening assurance to buy more than half of its capacity
once it is sold.
In a statement, the Power Sector
Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), which is tasked to
sell off state-owned power plants, said it has come to terms with
National Power Corp. to attach 400 megawatts of the 747-megawatt
Tiwi-MakBan geothermal power complex to a power supply contract.
With the supply contract assuring
new owners a ready market for the electricity that the Tiwi-MakBan
geothermal complex will generate, PSALM expressed confidence it
would gain “the full support and participation of the prospective
investor groups in the upcoming bidding” for the facility in June.
In addition, PSALM said it
expects the substantial contract sweetener attached to optimize the
value of the power plants.
A number of investor groups that
pre-qualified for the upcoming bidding earlier raised concern on the
inclusion of the restoration of two of the plant’s generating
units in the bidding terms amid declining steam availability in its
geothermal field, which is run by Chevron Geothermal Philippines
Holdings Inc.
In light of this, PSALM, which
had conducted two pre-bidding conferences, said another round of
consultations may be held with the Tiwi-MakBan’s nine prospective
bidders to thresh out “these critical issues.”
The pre-qualified bidders include
AP Renewables Inc., Intergen, Philippine National Oil Co.-Energy
Development Corp., San Miguel Energy Corp., AES Corp., Suez
Tractebel., First Gen Corp., Korea Electric Power Corp., One Energy
of China Light and Power and Mitsubishi of Japan.
PSALM said the sale of the
Tiwi-MakBan geothermal complex would bring it closer to the
70-percent privatization target for generating assets of Napocor in
Luzon and the Visayas. The privatization of Napocor’s power plants
is one of the preconditions for implementing open access and retail
competition in the Philippine electricity industry.
--Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo
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