Manila Standard Today reported that Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation plans to bid out the contracted capacities of the 640 MW Unified Leyte geothermal plant and 150 MW Casecnan hydropower plant later in 2012.
Mr Emmanuel Ledesma president of PSALM said that "We are targeting Unified Leyte and Casecnan later in fourth quarter."
PSALM said that it would proceed with the Unified Leyte and Casecnan bidding shortly after the re bidding of Power Barge Nos 101 to 104 in mid September 2012.
The bidding of the power barges was declared a failure in May 2012, after only one of the seven qualified bidders submitted an offer for the assets.
The previous draft bidding rules state that the Unified Leyte capacity will be divided on 60:40 basis, which means the capacities will be bid out at 384 MW and 255 MW, respectively.
Mr Ledesma said that "60:40 is the current division in the bidding process for Unified Leyte that has been suspended."
The 19th status report on the implementation of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act said the Unified Leyte capacities would be split due to the concern of investors on the market cap for the Visayas.
The report said that "In order not to violate the market cap provisions under the Epira, the bidding rules has indicated that capacities will be divided at 60:40, which means that the capacities will bid out at 384 MW and 255 MW, respectively."
The report said four investor groups signified interest when the government announced in June 2010 the resumption for the bidding of the contracted capacity of the Unified Leyte geothermal power plants. The bidding for the Unified Leyte contracts was postponed in 2010 in line with the government’s deferment of the privatization process.
The administrator of the Unified Leyte power plants will manage the contracted annual energy output from the power purchase agreements between state owned National Power Corporation and Lopez controlled Energy Development Corporation. These contracts will expire in 2025 and 2026.
Source - Manila Standard Today
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