SMC’s power plant bid denied

Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. excluded San Miguel Corp. from the list of power companies bidding for the 650-megawatt Malaya thermal power plant in Pililla, Rizal.

San Miguel president Ramon Ang said his group expressed interest in the auction of the thermal power plant, but he said PSALM would not allow San Miguel to participate in the bidding.

Four companies met the deadline on Dec. 20 and submitted their letters of interest for the Malaya plant assets being offered for privatization.  The actual bidding is scheduled on March 8, 2017.

“I did not know that it will be bid out. One day after, I wrote that I want to join the bidding. The bidding is still in March but they [PSALM] don’t want me to join,”  Ang said.

PSALM earlier said it received four letters of interest from APT Global Inc., Phinma Energy Corp., Riverbend Consolidated Mining Corp. and AC Energy Holdings Inc. 

PSALM manages the assets and liabilities of National Power Corp. as mandated by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001.

“What’s their reason? It’s most advantageous to the government to allow more bidders,” Ang said. He said San Miguel wanted to join all government auctions, so that the state would get the best deal.

“It’s more advantageous to allow San Miguel to join every government public bidding because when San Miguel joins the bid, the government usually gets the best deal,” he said.

Ang cited the case of the Cavite-Laguna Expressway which generated P27 billion for the government, much higher than the other offer of P11 billion.

San Miguel was initially disqualified from the CaLax bidding because of a typo error in its bid submission, but the company showed its P20-billion offer while the other bidder offered only P11 billion.

“Look at CaLax. From P11 billion that was supposed to be  awarded, it went up to P27 billion. It’s  always good that San Miguel is joining the bid,” he said.

Ang also said he would not withdraw his case against a PSALM official for terminating San Miguel’s 1,200-MW Ilijan natural gas plant power plant producer contract. 

San Miguel’s subsidiary South Premiere Power Corp. trades the contracted capacity of the Ilijan natural gas plant in Batangas after posting the highest bid of $870 million in 2010.

PSALM  issued the invitation to bid for Malaya in December, allowing bidders to conduct due diligence from Dec. 6, 2016 to March 6, 2017, while a bid conference was held on Jan. 6, 2017. Actual bid submission is scheduled on March 8, 2017.

The previous administration designated Malaya power plant as a ‘must-run unit’ in order to address any instability or supply deficiency that may occur as a result of a sudden unavailability of any operating power plants in the grid.

Malaya plant consists of a 300-MW unit with a once-through type boiler and a 350-MW unit fitted with a conventional boiler.