SHOULD the Naga Power Plant Complex (NPPC) be put up for rebidding, SPC Power Corp. is interested to bid again, a top official of the listed-firm said.

“The SC ruling was merely to nullify the bidding out and our exercise of the right to top. It wasn’t expounded upon on what actions Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM), was supposed to take. But if you follow the rationale for the ruling, it said the government should get the best offer and obviously, the best offer was ours since we topped the winning bid.

“The logical thing would be for the government to rebid the plant. There is really no intent of the government to keep that plant...So it’s likely that PSALM will now rebid the plant and if they rebid it, we would be interested to participate again,” said Alfredo Henares, chairman of the SPC Power Corp., at the sidelines of the firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting at the Cebu City Sports Club.

The firm, though, hasn’t received the invitation to bid yet but Henares said there were already informal talks.

“Informally, we were told. We have been talking to them and they agreed that the logical thing to do given the Supreme Court decision is to rebid it,” said Henares.

The firm’s purchase of the 153.1-megawatt NPPC from PSALM last Sept. 25, 2014 through public bidding was questioned and ruled with finality to be null and void by the Supreme Court (SC). The SC denied the attempts of the firm to seek reversal of the ruling.

At present, SPC Power Corp. is maintaining the NPPC. After the firm bought the power plant in 2014, Henares said the company has invested on various feasibility studies from environment to engineering, economic and market studies and has issued an invitation to bid when the SC decision came in.

“We were actually ready to proceed,” the chairman said, adding that if they win the rebidding, they are now more than ready to progress to the next steps.

But if they lose the bid, Henares said the company will eye other sites to put up power plants in Cebu.

“We are looking at several sites now all over Cebu,” he said.

SPC said it will continue to pursue businesses in coal-fired power plants, power barges, biomass, hydro, and geothermal power plants.

SPC’s subsidiaries are Bohol Light Company, Inc.; SPC Island Power Corp.; SPC Malaya Power Corp.; and SPC Electric Company, Inc. The company’s associates are Mactan Electric Company, Inc. and KEPCO SPC Power Corp.

The firm closed 2015 with a consolidated net income of P1.51 billion, which is almost the same as the total consolidated income registered in 2014.

“While the termination of two operation and maintenance service contracts with PSALM put pressure on our margins, the consistently good showing by major subsidiaries and affiliates buoyed by the efforts to increase other revenues, positively contributed to the year’s performance,” said Reynante del Rosario, SPC’s chief financial officer.

Group-wide revenues slightly went up to P2.75 million in 2015, from P2.72 million in 2014.

The company said revenues lost from expired operation and maintenance service contracts for the 650MW Malaya Thermal Power Plant and the 153.1MW NPPC were more than offset by higher revenues generated from the contracting and selling of electricity to the spot market and contracted distribution utilities, and distribution of purchased power.