Aboitiz Group eyes 4 power barges

MANILA, Philippines - AboitizPower, the holding company for the Aboitiz Group’s power generation, distribution and retail businesses, has expressed interest in the four power barges being privatized by the government.

In a briefing yesterday, AboitizPower senior vice president Luis Miguel Aboitiz said they are interested in bidding for Power Barges 101, 102, 103 and 104.

“We’ll definitely look at that,” said Aboitiz, who is also president of the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association (PIPPA).

He said if the group would pursue its bid on the four power barges, it would be looking at the facilities as just one package and not as separate entities.

“We’ll look at it as one big package,” he stressed.

AboitizPower announced in May that it is setting aside P125 billion for investments in the power sector over the next five years to double its capacity to 3,500 megawatts.

On Thursday, the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), the government agency overseeing the assets and liabilities of state-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor), announced it has commenced the sale of PB 101, 102, 103 and 104.

PSALM published an invitation to bid and gave potential bidders until Aug. 1 to submit letters of interest for the four power barges.

A pre-bid conference will follow on Aug. 7 while the submission of bids is on Oct. 9. The opening and evaluation of bids will follow immediately, PSALM also said in its notice.

PSALM president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. said significant changes have been incorporated in the terms for the sale of the four power barges to address the concerns raised in the past by previous bidders.

“We are selling the Iloilo-based PBs 101-103 as one package and Davao-based PB 104 as another package.  Transfer to Mindanao will no longer be a requirement for PBs 101-103, but the winning bidder for PB 104 will be required to operate the barge in Mindanao for at least five years,” Ledesma said.

Furthermore, Ledesma said the PSALM board has agreed to sell the four barges on an “as is, where is” basis.

“This means that no purchase request or purchase order will be attached to the sale agreement,” he said.

Under its previous bidding parameters, PSALM required the buyers of the three barges to transfer and operate these in Mindanao.

PSALM tried to bid out the power barges in the past but it declared two rounds of bidding as a failure after only one bidder participated in both exercises.

In the first bidding held in May 2012, only ACTA Power – a joint venture of Ayala Corp.’s AC Energy Holdings and Phinma’s Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp. – submitted an offer, PSALM said.

Similarly, in the second auction held in August last year, only Trans-Asia submitted a bid. Subsequent negotiations with Trans-Asia also failed.

PBs 101, 102, 103 and 104 are 32-megawatt (MW) barge-mounted bunker-fired diesel generating power stations.