Pagbilao expansion sealed

Manila Standard Today
by Alena Mae S. Flores


Aboitiz Power Corp. and Marubeni Corp. of Japan will jointly invest $600 million to $700 million to build a 400-megawatt power plant beside the existing 700-MW Pagbilao coal-fired station in Quezon province.


Aboitiz Power and Marubeni signed the agreement in Tokyo Tuesday after President Benigno Aquino III visited Japan.


Marubeni is part owner of TeaM Energy, which owns and operates the Pagbilao plant under a build-and-operate contract with National Power Corp.


TeaM Energy is composed of Marubeni and Tokyo Electric Power Co. Team Energy also owns and operates the 1,200-MW Sual coal plant in Pangasinan.


Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras confirmed the signing of the deal, adding that Marubeni was also looking at expanding the Sual coal-fired power plant.


“Discussions are going on... They are discussing the possibility of increasing the expansion, they might increase it up to 600 MW [for both Pagbilao and Sual],” he said.


Almendras said Ramon Ang, president of San Miguel Corp., which acts as administrator of the Sual plant, was also in Japan during the President’s visit.


Therma Luzon Inc., a unit of Aboitiz Power, handles the fuel procurement and sale of the electricity output as administrator of the Pagbilao power plant.


The new power plant in Pagbilao will also run on clean coal generation technology using the circulating fluidized bed system to produce power with considerably less adverse effects to the environment.


Signatories of the memorandum of agreement were Aboitiz Power president and chief executive Erramon Aboitiz, and Marubeni executive managing director and board member Shigeru Yamazoe.


“We are very pleased to work with Marubeni at optimizing the capacity of the Pagbilao power station. This is part of our overall goal of providing power solutions that are competitively priced,” Aboitiz said. “We expect to complete the power plant within 2015.”