SPC highest bidder for power plants

MANILA, Philippines - SPC Power Corp. (SPC) gave the highest bid of $5.86 million for the 146.5-megawatt (MW) Panay and 22-MW Bohol diesel power plants in a public auction held by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) Wednesday, putting the power asset privatization level above the 70% target. In a statement, PSALM said that with the successful privatization of the Panay and Bohol plants, PSALM has breached the 70% privatization threshold for the generation plants of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) in Luzon and the Visayas — one of the requirements for the implementation of "open access" and retail competition. Privatization is now at 73%. PSALM spokesman Conrad S. Tolentino said in a phone interview that being the highest bidder for the diesel plants does not automatically make SPC the owner of the plants, until it submits more documents to finalize the sale. The formal awarding of the plants may take some more months after the documents will have been processed, he said. The other bidders for the plants were Therma Power-Visayas, a Philippine corporation owned by the Aboitiz Power Corp.; and Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp., a subsidiary of the Philippine Investment Management Inc. Formerly known as Salcon Power Corp., SPC was formed in 1994. It is a consortium led by Salcon Philippines, Inc., a subsidiary of Singapore firm Salcon Ltd. that is engaged in water treatment plants, waste water treatment plants, palm oil mills, and liquid storage tanks. SPC also manages and operates Napocor’s 203.8-MW Naga Power Plant Complex in Cebu under a Rehabilitation, Operation, Maintenance, and Management agreement. The Panay package consists of the 36.5-megawatt Panay 1 and 110-megawatt Panay 3. Panay 1 was commissioned in 1979, while Panay 3, known as the Pinamucan diesel power plant, was relocated from Batangas after its build-operate-transfer contract with Enron Power Development Corp. expired in 2003. The plant was transferred to its present location to avert a power shortage on Panay. The Bohol plant, in Tagbilaran, consists of four 5.5-MW generating units. — Ava Kashima K. Austria, BusinessWorld