By Danessa Rivera (The
Philippine Star) | Updated September 19, 2017 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — State-run
Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) is eyeing to
rationalize its real estate assets to bring down its financial obligations
while waiting for the go-ahead on the sale of government-owned power plants.
PSALM officer-in-charge Lourdes
Alzona said the agency is reviewing its remaining real estate assets while
waiting for the direction on the Malaya power plant sale from the Department of
Energy (DOE).
“The remaining asset in our schedule
this year is Malaya plant,” she said. “While awaiting the needed direction, the
focus is profiling our real estate assets in addition to liability management
to service outstanding financial obligations.”
Alzona said PSALM would undertake
measures on its properties as long as it is “legally feasible.” “We are
coordinating with PEZA (Philippine Economic Zone Authority) to maximize value
of these assets,” she said.
PSALM is the entity created by the
Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001 to privatize
government-owned power assets.
In addition to power assets, the law
also directed PSALM to take ownership and implement a sale or privatization
program for real estate and all other disposable assets.
Data from its website showed PSALM
has real estate assets with an aggregate land area of around 100 million square
meters (sqm), consisting of 6,160 lots located in various parts of the country.
Around 60 percent of the total land
area is located in Luzon, 39 percent in Mindanao and the remainder in the
Visayas.
Alzona said the agency has P5
billion worth of real estate that could be sold, but it needs to identify which
ones could be privatized since these involve around 10,000 hectares of
properties.
Scattered across the country, some
of the real estate properties include the Puerto Azul Resort in Cavite and a
property in Bagac, Bataan.
As of end-June, PSALM’s remaining
obligations amount to P490 billion.
PSALM reduces debts through the
privatization of assets under National Power Corp., collection of the proceeds
and PSALM’s effective implementation of its liability management program.
The completion of the privatization
program will also help PSALM avoid operational losses from expensive power
plants and independent power producer (IPP) contracts.
PSALM said deficiencies in
obligations on the part of IPP administrators (IPPAs) are addressed according
to the terms stipulated under the IPPA administration agreement (IPPA AA).
However, Alzona said discussions and
agreements which transpired between PSALM and the IPPAs are all elevated to the
PSALM board for final direction before these become relevant and binding.
“As to the implementation of Unified
Leyte Geothermal Power Plant (ULGPP), through PSALM trading strategies, it is
ensured that the strips of energy are fully dispatched, providing IPPAs
security from market volatility. PSALM assists IPPAs in their bilateral
contract applications with the Energy Regulatory Commission by providing them
support documents used as basis for approval by the regulatory body,” it said.
PSALM said it would exhaust all
diplomatic steps before the necessary termination of IPPA AAs is put into
effect due to administrator’s default. Negotiations and mediations which are
more amicable schemes are used for dispute resolution in accordance with the
AAs.
Last week, Phinma Energy Corp. filed
civil cases at the Makati Regional Trial Court against PSALM and its former
president and CEO Emmanuel Ledesma for unduly scrapping its IPPA contract to
administer strips of energy of the ULGPP on grounds of administrator’s default.
No comments:
Post a Comment