Published
October 27, 2016, 10:01 PM By Myrna M. Velasco
Aboitiz Power
Corporation is suggestively vying for a “perfect marriage” on its goal to win
the $3.0-billion sale of Asian geothermal assets of American energy giant
Chevron Corporation, because that gives it the leeway to calculatedly couple
its power plant operations with underpinning steamfield assets.
When asked on the
rationale behind their very strategic interest on both of Chevron’s Indonesian
and Philippine geothermal assets, Aboitiz Power President and Chief Operating
Officer Antonio R. Moraza quipped that “it will be a perfect marriage.”
Primarily for the
Philippine assets, he indicated that they may finally gain the leverage to
solve the long-term impasse on their geothermal resource sales contract (GRSC)
with Philippine Geothermal Production Company, the current operator of the Tiwi
and Makiling-Banahaw steamfields held by Chevron and local partner All First
Equity Holdings of the Sy Group. That relationship is just currently bounded
legally through an interim agreement.
The Indonesian asset
integrates the American firm’s Salak steamfield with a power plant facility of
377-megawatt capacity.
Reports have placed the
assets’ value at $3.0 billion, but none of the bidders could say how much worth
the deal would be eventually. Transaction advisor is Citigroup, Inc.
Aboitiz Power has been
among the “most serious” prospective bidders in the Chevron assets. Other
groups reportedly setting their sights on that acquisition deal have been
Japan’s Marubeni Corporation and Mitsubishj Corporation, Indonesia’s PT Medco
Power, Malaysia’s Malakoff Corporation and China Investment Corporation.
Aboitiz Equity Ventures
Manuel R. Lozano told reporters that they will likely join a consortium of 3-4
companies in their bid for the asset. Prospective buyers anticipate a decision
on the asset divestment before the end of this year.
“It’s a big asset, it’s
hard for one entity to bid on its own… we want to have significant share, it’s
hard for us to hold majority especially in Indonesia because we don’t have our
presence in Indonesia, it should be significant minority so we can be part of
the decision-making,” he said.
On the choice of
partners, Lozano qualified that “ideally for us, we’ll know if it’s a strong
partner. We want to engage domestic Indonesian partner as well, so it really
depends on how much each one is willing to put in in terms of equity,” adding
that “the consortium will be finalized together with the bid.”
The “perfect marriage”
proposition, according to Lozano, will be achieved “in the sense that if you
look at most of the geothermal projects – they are steam fields and the power
plants.” Under that business model, he explained that planning could then be
integrated and cost of operations could also be prudently managed.
With reference to the
Tiwi-MakBan operations, he said “today for us, it’s a bit more challenging
because we are two separate companies with separate goals – that’s the two ends
operating of the geothermal side, so an integrated unit will be easier to
manage.”
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