Privatization of four power barges — facilities seen as a stop-gap solution to the deficiency of electricity now plaguing Mindanao — yesterday failed as only one group submitted a bid.
The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) — the agency mandated by Republic Act No. 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001, to handle the sale of state power assets and financial obligations of the National Power Corp. — declared the auction a failure since its rules state there must be at least two bidders.
The lone bidder was ACTA Power, a joint venture between AC Energy Holdings Corp. of Ayala Corp. and Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp.
The assets for sale — power barges 101, 102, 103 and 104 — each have a capacity of 32-megawatts (MW) and are diesel-fired.
“The conduct of a second round of bidding for the power barges will be taken up with the PSALM board of directors…PSALM hopes to conduct the second round of bidding as soon as possible, subject to board approval,” Emmanuel R. Ledesma, Jr., PSALM’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement yesterday.
The Energy department had said the barges could be moved to Mindanao to help bridge the power supply-demand gap, which the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines yesterday estimated at 94 MW.
Mindanao’s premier business group pressed the government to come to the island’s aid, the auction’s failure notwithstanding. “The bidding (failure) will not prevent PSALM from sending the barges to Mindanao if it really wants to,” Mindanao Business Council Chairman Vicente T. Lao said via text. “The issue is if PSALM is willing to spend money to ease the sufferings of the consumers in Mindanao or not.”
Commenting on the failed sale via text, Energy Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras said only the department was “studying our options on bidding and on moving barges to Mindanao.”
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By Emilia Narni J. David
Source: BusinessWorld, May 17, 2012
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