Mindanao geothermal plant to resume operations in Oct.

MANILA, Philippines - Energy Development Corp.(EDC) — formerly known as Philippine National Oil Co.-EDC — said that it plans to use the 52-megawatt Mindanao 1 Geothermal Power Plant (M1GP) again by this October after its outage last month. EDC said in a disclosure to the stock exchange on Tuesday that it expects that the 75-megavolt-ampere transformer, which had been damaged after an internal inspection and has caused the M1GP to stop operating since July, will be replaced and will be operational by October 15. The plant partially supplies the Mindanao grid and primarily services the Cotabato provinces. Together with the 54-mw Mindanao 2 Geothermal Power Plant, M1GP forms part of the Mindanao Geothermal Production Field (MGPF) facilities at the foot of Mt. Apo in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato. MGPF occupies 112 hectares out of the 701 hectares that the government reserved nationwide for geothermal development back in 1991. The two power facilities are being operated jointly by EDC and Marubeni Corporation of Japan, one of two foreign groups which financed, designed and constructed the project under a build-operate and transfer (BOT) arrangement. The other foreign BOT operator, Oxbow Power Corp. of the United States, was earlier bought out by Marubeni, making the Japanese firm the sole BOT operator of the plants. Full operation and ownership of the two power facilities will be turned over to EDC by June next year, when the 10-year BOT arrangement will have ended. — BusinessWorld