San Miguel bidding for Naga, other power assets

Manila Standard Today

San Miguel Corp. said Tuesday it will bid for all the remaining state power assets starting with the Naga coal plant contracts slated for auction in October, an official said.

“We’re joining the bid of all the remaining generating assets and contracted capacities. The chances of winning [is slim] considering the competition so we need to bid for all of them,” Alan Ortiz, San Miguel Global Power Holdings Corp. president and chief operating officer told reporters.

Ortiz said San Miguel would join the Oct. 10 bidding for the contracted capacity of the Naga power plant complex in Cebu.

Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. said Tuesday that interested investors could start the due diligence on the capacity of Naga power assets starting July 22 to July 29.

The Naga power plant complex is composed of the 50-megawatt Cebu Thermal Power Plant 1, 56.8-MW Cebu Thermal Power Plant 2 and the 39-MW Cebu Diesel Power Plant.

Ortiz said San Miguel would also bid for the contracts of 640-MW Unified Leyte geothermal power facilities.

The bidding covers the contracts of the Leyte geothermal plants, which include the 125-MW Upper Mahiao, 232-MW Malitbog and 180-MW Mahanagdong and the 51-MW optimization plants.

PSALM has not set a bidding date for the Unified Leyte contracts.

Ortiz said San Miguel had no power asset in the Visayas, which could provide additional capacity for the company.

“We have no exposure in the Visayas... [But] we will bid and that’s as far as I can say,” he said.

He said San Miguel was nearing the market cap in Luzon and had no room to increase its capacity.

“Not for Luzon, we’ve already reached 29 percent,” he said. “We have 3,100 MW [and] that’s our entire portfolio,” Ortiz said.

San Miguel’s power assets include the the 620-megawatt Limay combined cycle power plant in Bataan.

It manages the supply contracts of the 1,000-MW Sual coal-fired power plant and the 345-MW San Roque multi-purpose hydro stations in Pangasinan province and the 1,294-MW Ilijan natural gas power facility in Batangas. Alena Mae S. Flores