Aboitiz Group eyes more power plants in ecozones

The Aboitiz Group is looking at the possibility of acquiring other power distribution facilities within industrial estates under the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), a top Aboitiz official said.

Subic EnerZone Corp. (SEZC) president Jaime Jose Aboitiz said their company is interested in exploring all possible business opportunities in these economic growth areas.

"Whatever comes up for privatization we will look at it," the SEZC official said.

In Cebu, the Aboitiz Group operates the 63-hectare Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ) 2.

SEZC is a consortium made up of Aboitiz Equity Ventures and its subsidiary Davao Light & Power Co., and Mirant Phils. The company manages the power distribution system within the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.

In 2003, it won through a competitive bidding the power distribution services for the Subic Bay Freeport Zone for a period of 25 years.

SEZC acquired recently the sub-transmission assets of state-owned National Transmission Corp. (Transco) in the freeport for P29 million. The contract involves 7.24 circuit-kilometers of Transco’s sub-transmission lines.

Aboitiz said the acquisition of Transco’s sub-transmission assets would improve the firm’s ability to deliver power to its customers, most of which are huge industrial power users.

He added SEZC has also started paying lower electricity bills since March after the company announced it was able to reduce its systems loss.

SEZC recently reported that it was able to reduce its systems loss, or losses due to pilferage and other means, by an average of 7.87 percent, thus lowering its per kilowatthour (kwh) rate by almost 10 centavos.