Meralco sets conditional EPC award to Hyundai Subic project

Manila Bulletin  
By Myrna M. Velasco 
Published: June 1, 2013 
The power generation subsidiary of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) has set conditional award of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for its planned 600-megawatt Subic coal-fired power facility to South Korea’s Hyundai Group, according to project sponsors.
Meralco President Oscar S. Reyes has indicated in a media briefing that “a conditional award for the project’s EPC was already made,” but he stopped short of naming the company.
Other sources involved in the project, however, affirmed that the turnkey contract had been conditionally bestowed on the Hyundai Group – which will also involve Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd; Hyundai Corporation and Hyundai Engineering Co.
Reyes noted that preparatory works at the site are already being undertaken and the company already spent roughly P1.0 billion for such activities.
Nevertheless, developments could not proceed to construction yet until the resolution of a pending case at the Court of Appeals.
The appellate court has junked the petition for Writ of Kalikasan against the proposed facility. However, the major blow on the project’s implementation had been the court’s ruling invalidating the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) previously granted to the first 300-megawatt component of the project. Reyes noted that Meralco PowerGen already filed its motion for reconsideration.
The 600-megawatt Subic coal-fired plant is one the capacity additions being depended upon to shore up power supply in the Luzon grid by 2016.
The facility’s construction is delayed for almost a year now; and without concrete capacity additions from bigger scale projects by 2016, the Aquino administration might be leaving this country with another round of power crisis.
“You’re taking out 600 megawatts of the projected capacity. That’s roughly about 6.0 percent, including your coal-fired plants, of total installed Luzon grid capacity,” Reyes said.
With a political will, various business organizations in the country perceive that the gridlock in the Subic power project’s implementation can just be easily solved by this administration.
That could be in the form of a mandate that it could give to host Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) as to the prioritization of vital installations, like one that will have to sustainably meet the country’s energy supply.
On the invalidated ECC, Meralco opined that its signing of a lease agreement with SBMA could have sufficed as its initial step in securing the required local government approval because the freeport will be the default host of the facility’s site.
Reyes stressed that local government approvals will be secured prior to their issuance of notice to proceed on the project’s construction.
“RP Energy (the project’s corporate vehicle) remains committed to see its 2X300MW coal-fired power plant completed and in commercial operations to ensure power supply adequacy, reliability and quality at competitive process,” he added.  source