By Danessa Rivera (The
Philippine Star) | Updated July 4, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - State-run
Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corp. still has P565
billion in financial obligations for its remaining 10-year corporate life.
To reduce its obligations, the
state-run agency is seeking guidance on the sale of its remaining power-related
assets and a handful of real estate properties from the new administration, a
ranking official said.
PSALM officer-in-charge Lourdes
Alzona said in a chance interview last week the agency still has a handful of
assets that could be sold, including major power plants, scrap power assets and
real estate assets.
She said the agency has P5 billion
worth of real estate that could be sold pending board approval, while the
“excluded parts” should be disposed of as soon as possible.
The scrap assets involve all
materials, scrap and plant equipment of Cebu Diesel Power Plant II (CDPPII) in
Toledo City, Cebu, Palinpinon Geothermal Power Plant (PGPP) in Valencia, Negros
Oriental, Bohol Diesel Power Plant (BDPP) in Tagbilaran City, Bohol and Aplaya
Diesel Power Plant (ADPP) in Jasaan, Misamis Oriental.
These assets, targeted to be sold by
2017, were initially bid out in March this year. The bidding was declared a
failure as no bidders met the reserve price.
On the real estate portion, Alzona
said the agency needs to identify which ones could be privatized since these
involve around 10,000 hectares of properties.
“We need to segregate those which
have titles, which are alienable, and those that cannot be sold because they
are government-owned,” she said.
Scattered across the country, some
of the real estate properties include the Puerto Azul resort in Cavite and a
property in Bagac, Bataan.
However, Alzona said the PSALM board
is not keen on selling the Bagac property since it is earning. “We will not
dispose this yet. The approval we got from the board is to improve its
management,” she said.
Meanwhile, PSALM’s remaining
generating assets include the decommissioned 850-megawatt
(MW) Sucat Thermal Power Plant (STPP) in Muntinlupa City, Malaya
Thermal Power Plant in Rizal, the Agus I, II, IV to VII and Pulangi
Hydroelectric Power Plants (HEPP) in Mindanao and the Mindanao Coal-Fired Power
Plant.
Of all the power assets left, only
the Agus-Pulangi HEPP has value, Alzona said. The sale of the assets are
subject to consultation with Congress as stated in the Republic Act 9136, or
Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001.
The Sucat plant is scheduled for
another auction in September this year, after two failed biddings in 2014 and
April this year.
PSALM is the agency mandated by
EPIRA to handle the sale of the remaining state-power assets and the financial
obligations of the Napocor.
As of end-2015, it has a
P565-billion financial obligation, a big portion coming from independent power
producers (IPPs) and concessionaire.
This has been reduced from the P1.2
trillion debt as of end-December 2000, or prior the passage of the EPIRA.
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