1st phase of Tiwi-Makban rehab completed in Dec

The National Power Corp. (Napocor) expects to complete the first part of the rehabilitation program for the Tiwi and Makiling-Banahaw (Makban) geothermal power facilities by December this year.

Napocor senior vice president for generation Pio Benavidez said the first leg of the rehab program started last June.

Benavidez said the last unit, scheduled for rehab in the first semester of 2004, is expected to be completed by June 2005.

Napocor and Philippine Geothermal Inc. (PGI), the proponents running these power facilities, have already firmed up the financing for the rehabilitation program, he added.

But he said they still need to thresh out some details of the supplemental agreement for some additional rehabilitation works.

Napocor has tapped an available P1-billion credit line from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) for the rehabilitation of the geothermal plants.

The state-owned power firm has likewise secured a loan amounting to ¥4.41 billion for the Tiwi rehabilitation and ¥3.3 billion as well as $7.72 million for the repair of the Makban geothermal facilities.

The group of Marubeni-Toshiba Corp. of Japan has bagged the contract to undertake the repair of the 330-megawatt Tiwi geothermal plant in Albay.

Due to wear-and-tear, the Tiwi plant is no longer generating electricity as per its installed capacity. As present, Tiwi is only capable of producing only around 100 MW of power.

The 410-MW Makban geothermal plant, on the other hand, is currently producing only around 200 MW.

Mitsubishi Corp. will undertake the rehabilitation needed for Makban to bring its performance back to rated capacity.

PGI, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Unocal of US, operates the geothermal fields Makban in Quezon and Tiwi in Albay with total installed capacity of 756 MW.

For the period 1979-2002, Tiwi and Makban produced energy equivalent to 88,500 gigawatthours or 153 million barrels of oil. This translated to foreign exchange savings of $3.21 billion for the 23-year period.