The privatization agency Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) has just released the invitation to bid for a diesel-fired power plant package comprising a 146.5-megawatt (MW) plant in Panay Island and a 22-MW plant in the island province of Bohol.
In its invitation to bid, PSALM said investors interested in bidding for the plants had until July 30 to submit letters of interest. The deadline for submission of bids is on October 29.
Qualified bidders may conduct due diligence studies on the plants from July 17 to Oct. 27 while a pre-bid conference has been set on Aug. 6.
The Panay facility consists of the 36.5-MW Panay 1 and the 110-MW Panay 3 while the Bohol plant consists of four 5.5-MW generating units.
This should be a straightforward sale.
Wait.
Isn't this the Panay plant which was originally bundled with the 192.5 MW Palinpinon geothermal complex, but its sale is now effectively scuttled because of issues surrounding the geothermal resources sales contract (GRSC)?
It is. So, PSALM is implicitly admitting that it couldn't sell the Palinpinon plant under present circumstances. PSALM actually clarified that the sale will not be held this November, but "next year" in a tone already implying that it may not be able to do so.
What is even more worrisome is that the Panay plant is bundled with the Bohol plant. There have been suggestions from PSALM officers themselves that the Bohol plant was to be bundled with the Tongonan I power plant, and that package was next in line of geothermal assets to be sold.
This seems to be a prelude of an anticipated failure to dispose of the Tongonan asset, and possibly, the Bacman geothermal plant.
The dismal scorecard (score:0, after three years) of PSALM in disposing of geothermal assets as part of the mandate of EPIRA law should give our policy makers a wake up call at the very least why these assets seem to be unsalable.
And to think that we already claim to have the bragging rights about geothermal.
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