Five companies expressed interest to participate in the third-round of negotiated sale for the 650-megawatt Malaya Thermal Power Plant and its underlying land in Pililla, Rizal after the government reduced the minimum bid price again.
State-owned Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. said Friday that China Gezhouba Group Co., Ltd, Sta. Clara International Corp., VBB Trucking Trading and Consultancy Services, Inc., Fort Pilar Energy Inc. and AC Energy Philippines Inc. submitted letters of interest to participate in the negotiated sale process.
“PSALM looks forward to a successful privatization process for the Malaya Power Plant. We are excited that five firms expressed interest to join the process. We have lowered the minimum offer price already. Hopefully, this round will allow us to finally sell the Malaya Power Plant,” said PSALM president and chief executive Irene Besido-Garcia.
A pre-negotiation conference will be held by PSALM for the interested buyers on March 9 at 2 p.m. to discuss the issues and concerns on the terms of the sale.
PSALM set the offer submission deadline on April 23 at 12 noon. The agency said only interested parties that submitted an LOI would be allowed to participate in the negotiated sale process for the MTPP.
PSALM substantially reduced the minimum offer price for the package to P1,845,222,000 from P2,007,780,000 in the second negotiated sale.
The negotiated sale process for the privatization of MTPP in October last year failed to receive formal bids during the pre-negotiation process as investor interest was affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The government is losing around P1.2 billion annually from maintaining the Malaya power plant, according to the Department of Energy.
“Based on the losses for the last 10 years [2010 to 2019], the average annual net loss of PSALM in maintaining MTPP is P1.2 billion,” the DOE said in a report.
The report said MTTP was declared a “must run unit” in 2014 which means the power plant is required to run if needed by the grid.