Consunji group bags Pinamucan power plant deal

The National Power Corp. (Napocor) has awarded the contract for the transfer of the 110-megawatt (MW) Pinamucan diesel power plant to the Dingle II consortium.

Napocor president Rogelio Murga said the Napocor board granted the provisional award to the consortium composed of DM Consunji, Inc., Bendimil Construction & Development Corp., Alsons Power Holdings Corp., and Home Construction Inc.

Based on Napocor’s record, the Dingle II consortium tendered the lowest bid price of P629.5 million during the third public bidding.

The winning group’s offer was lower than Napocor’s approved revised budget of P660.1 million for the transfer of the facility from Batangas to Dingle, Iloilo.

The project will be done in two phases, which based on Napocor’s estimates would take at least 10 months to complete.

The whole process of dismantling, hauling, transferring and installing four 12.94-MW and four 14.63-MW diesel generator sets, auxiliary equipment and powerhouse, including test and commissioning, is expected to be completed in January next year.

The first four units however, will commence operations by November this year.

The winning bidder will also be required to supply various electro-mechanical materials and equipment needed for the safe and reliable operation of the plant after the transfer, and to undertake the construction of equipment foundations, power foundations, intrasite road networks and other plant facilities.

Finally, the contractor will be responsible for the testing and commissioning of the power plant, which will be renamed the Dingle diesel power plant II.

Napocor acquired the Pinamucan facility after the 10-year contract of Enron Power Corp. expired in July last year. Enron built Pinamucan in 1993 under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme.

The facility’s transfer to Dingle has been identified as one of the fastest solutions to an impending power shortage in Visayas.

Power outages have already been felt in the Visayas region starting the last quarter of 2003, particularly in the Panay Island.