Marubeni may bid for three Napocor geothermal plants

The local unit of Japanese industrial giant Marubeni Corp. is looking at the possibility of bidding for three geothermal assets of the National Power Corp. (Napocor), a ranking company official said.

Marubeni Philippines Corp. president, Federico Puno said they are specifically eyeing the combined 275-megawatt (MW) Tiwi geothermal power plant and 425.73-MW Makiling-Banahaw (Makban) in Laguna, 112.5-MW Palinpinon in Negros Oriental and the 112.5-MW Tongonan in Leyte.

He said they would form a consortium to bid for these assets as the move would require a huge amount of investment.

Marubeni earlier announced that it had forged a joint venture with the Lopez-owned First Generation Corp. to participate in the bidding for the Napocor assets.

But Puno said they would likely need more partners to meet the capital requirement for the purchase of power plants.

He, on the other hand, admitted that they are still studying carefully whether they would bid for the Calaca coal-fired power plant.

"We have not yet decided if we will be bidding for Calaca," Puno said, noting that most of Marubeni’s exposure to the Philippine power sector is in geothermal power.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed last October with First Gen, Marubeni will also be acquiring some privately-owned power generation facilities.

As a long-time propoment of power development in the Philippines, Marubeni has undertaken a number of power projects particularly in renewable energy like geothermal, coal and hydropower.

Late last year, Marubeni also signified interest to bid for the construction of five fuel ethanol plants in San Carlos, Bukidnon and other areas in Negros.

The Japanese firm is also into construction and rehabilitation of various transmission line projects of the National Transmission Corp.