Fort Pilar Energy bags Malaya plant with P3.12-billion offer

By Alena Mae S. Flores – May 07, 2021 at 08:05 pm
from manilastandard.net

State-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. on Friday declared Fort Pilar Energy Inc. as the winning negotiating party after submitting the highest offer of P3.123 billion for the 650-megawatt Malaya Thermal Power Plant and its land in Pililla, Rizal.
PSALM held the public negotiated sale on Friday for the MTPP asset.

Fort Pilar’s offer surpassed the minimum offer price of P1,845,222,000 set by the PSALM board for the Malaya negotiated sale process.

“After several attempts to privatize MTPP the last two years, we are very happy to have finally received financial bids substantially above our minimum offer price,” PSALM president and chief executive Irene Besido-Garcia said in a statement.

The other qualified negotiating party, AC Energy Corp., submitted an offer of P2.22 billion.

The sale of the MTPP is on an “as-is where Is” basis. It includes the 300-MW Unit 1 and the 350-MW Unit 2 and the underlying land.

“We are glad that this culminated in a successful privatization. PSALM definitely needs the proceeds of this privatization activity to pay for the remaining stranded contract costs and stranded debts. MTPP contributed to the losses of PSALM the past many years, and so we really looked forward to selling it,” Garcia said.

The results of the negotiation exercise will be subject to a post-qualification process to ensure that the winning negotiating party indeed met all the financial and legal requirements as indicated in the negotiation procedures.

Representatives from the Commission on Audit, the Department of Finance, the Department of Justice, and National Power Corp. witnessed the proceedings.

MTPP is being dispatched as a must-run unit by NGCP. Under the privatization deal, MTPP is no longer required to run as an MRU as approved by the Department of Energy.