GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/14 March)—The Alcantara Group has formally taken over the 102-megawatt (MW) Iligan diesel power plant from the Iligan City government at a total project cost of P1.2 billion, a company executive said on Thursday.
Oscar Benedict Contreras III, Alsons Power Business Unit manager for communications and stakeholder relations, said the power plant was turned over Monday and will operate under the name Mapalad Power Corp (MPC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the publicly-listed Alsons Consolidated Resources, Inc.
He placed the acquisition cost of the Iligan power plant at P387 million.
“The total project cost that includes the acquisition, rehabilitation and other expenses amounted to P1.2 billion,” Contreras said in a text message.
With the takeover by MPC, he said that rehabilitation of the power plant has commenced and that the plant might go on commercial stream “before the end of summer.”
Contreras said that MPC has forged power sales agreements with the South Cotabato II Electric Cooperative, Inc. for 30 MW, Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative, Inc. for 18 MW, Iligan Light and Power, Inc. for 10 MW and Zamboanga del Sur Electric Cooperative, Inc. for 5 MW.
The Iligan local government earlier put the power plant in auction after the state-owned National Power Corp. reportedly failed to settle the real property tax due to the city.Oscar Benedict Contreras III, Alsons Power Business Unit manager for communications and stakeholder relations, said the power plant was turned over Monday and will operate under the name Mapalad Power Corp (MPC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the publicly-listed Alsons Consolidated Resources, Inc.
He placed the acquisition cost of the Iligan power plant at P387 million.
“The total project cost that includes the acquisition, rehabilitation and other expenses amounted to P1.2 billion,” Contreras said in a text message.
With the takeover by MPC, he said that rehabilitation of the power plant has commenced and that the plant might go on commercial stream “before the end of summer.”
The acquisition of the Iligan diesel plant, identified as one of the solutions to ease Mindanao’s power woes, from the Iligan City government was being worked out since last year, with the Commission on Audit conducting the procedural review for the transfer of ownership.
The Alcantara Group originally operated the Iligan diesel power plant, formerly the Northern Mindanao Power Plant, through the build-operate-transfer scheme. The company turned the power plant to Napocor in 2003.Part of Mindanao have been suffering from power outages since the last few weeks with the generation deficiency of existing power plants in the island blamed for the problem.
In this city, Socoteco II has implemented a four-hour daily rotational brownout since the start of the month due to deficient power supply.
Based on the website of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines on Thursday, the Mindanao grid has a supply deficiency of 320 MW. Demand for the day stood at 1163 MW while the actual capacity was only 843 MW. (Bong S. Sarmiento/MindaNews) source
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