Mirant hopeful of closing assets’ sale this mo

US-based Mirant Corp. remains optimistic it could still meet this month’s deadline for the closing of its sales agreement with Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) and Marubeni Corp., a top company official said.

In a report, Mirant chairman and CEO Ed Muller said the company is “proceeding along the path to close the transaction” for the sale of its Philippine business.

In December 2006, Tepco-Marubeni won the bid for Mirant’s Philippine assets with a $3.424-billion offer.

But Muller admitted a possibility that there might be a slight delay in the closing of the deal. “We had expected previously that we would close this in June. We are still hopeful that we will. (But) it may slip into July.”

He noted that repair works in Unit 1 of the 1,200- megawatt Sual coal power plant in Pangasinan are still ongoing.

“Unit 1, which was the second unit to experience a generator failure, has not yet come back online. We expect it to come back online this month, though it may slip into early July,” Muller said.

He said they want to make sure that they would be able to run the facility smoothly before its turnover.

“We are in the process of bringing it back up and in that process had some vibration in the turbine and as a result, we want to make sure it is fine. So we’re being a little cautious on the schedule to make sure we get it running nice and smoothly,” the Mirant head said.

The Japanese consortium has indicated it wants the repair of the Sual facilities to be completed before closing the deal with Mirant.

“The generator for Unit 2 was repaired and it is now back in service since March of this year,” Muller said.

Mirant’s assets in the Philippines include 100 percent ownership of the Sual facility, 100 percent of the 735-MW coal-fired power plant in Pagbilao, Quezon and a 20-percent stake in the Ilijan, Batangas natural gas power plant.

For its part, the Japanese consortium said it may finance the acquisition of Mirant’s assets through financing from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

Recently, the group had committed to invest some $400 million to expand the capacity of the Pagbilao plant by another 400 MW.