PSALM to rebid Malaya thermal power plant’s service contract

By Lenie Lectura – August 16, 2018
from Business Mirror

THE Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) will rebid the Operation and Maintenance Service Contract (OMSC) for its Malaya thermal-power plant (TPP) after it declared the previous auction a failure.

“The first round of bidding for OMSC Malaya TPP  generated two bidders. One bidder was disqualified during bid evaluation while the lowest-ranking bidder was post qualified. We therefore declared failure of bidding,” PSALM President Irene Joy Garcia said in a text message.

Mindoro Grid Corp.’s P227.04-million bid bested the P258-million offer of Soosan ENS Co. Ltd., the other bidder that participated in the bid opening activity held on May 30.

The current operator of the power plant is STX Marine Service Co. Ltd., whose contract will expire on August 25, 2018.

Consequently, PSALM decided to hold another auction. “Necessarily, we have commenced the second round of bidding with the publication of our invitation to bid on August 8 and the conduct of prebid conference,” Garcia added.

In its bid invite, PSALM approved a budget of P213 million for the second round of procurement of the OMSC. PSALM has set a deadline for the submission of bids until August 30. The bids will be opened on the same day. Bidding will be conducted through open-competitive bidding procedures using a pass/fail criterion.

During the prebid conference held on August 15, Garcia said, “four firms attended.” She did not identify the firms.

Interested firms can purchase bid documents for P50,000.

The OMSC contract is good for one year. Interested bidders should have completed a contract similar to the project. 

The Malaya TPP is being managed by PSALM through an OMSC. Located in Pililla, Rizal, the Malaya TPP was designated as a must-run unit (MRU) by the Department of Energy in 2014. As an MRU, it is compelled to run and provide the needed power supply as deemed necessary in order to ensure reliability of power supply in the Luzon grid, particularly in times of supply shortfall, system security and voltage support.

In 1995 it was rehabilitated by Korea Electric Power Corp. under a 15-year rehabilitate-operate-manage-maintain agreement.