Saturday, October 20, 2007 2 estate firms to join bidding for Manila power plant
THE Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (Psalm) revealed that two big real estate developers will participate in the upcoming auction of the Manila Thermal Power Plant (MTPP) in Paco, Manila.
“There are at least two property developers that signified interest to join or tie up with existing groups of bidders for MTPP. They can do whatever they want with the land. They can develop it,” said Psalm vice president Froilan Tampinco.
According to Tampinco, the attachment of the land was the main driver why real estate developer took interest in the decommissioned MTPP.
In its Invitation to Bid (ITB), Psalm indicated that the MTPP would be sold on an "as is, where is" basis, which would include the plant equipment, auxiliaries and accessories as well as the underlying land.
The power agency is also expecting bidders engaged in the construction or steel manufacturing business, or those eyeing the scrap value of the MTPP’s equipment, component auxiliaries and accessories to join the bidding for the decommissioned facility slated on December 19, 2007.
So far, four investor groups have expressed interest to join the bidding and two of them are foreign firms. Under the Philippine laws, foreigners are not allowed to own real estate properties in the country and that MTPP should be majority owned by Filipinos.
MTPP has two identical generating units, each with a capacity of 100 megawatts (MW). Unit One was commissioned on September 1, 1965, while Unit Two was commissioned on October 15, 1966.
Both units substantially contributed power to the Luzon Grid until their retirement in January 2000. All plant systems are intact and all major equipment properly maintained and preserved.
In 2005 and 2006, MTPP was put on the auction block but the bidding was declared a failure.
Should the December 19 bidding again fail, Tampinco said they may opt to effect a third party auction for the decommissioned plant. (MSN/Sunnex)
