PNOC-EDC to pre-qualify bidders for Palinpinon project by May 23

Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental – The PNOC-Energy Development Corp. (EDC) expects to pre-qualify bidders for its $20 million to $25 million Palinpinon II Optimization Project by May 23 this year, a top company official said here.

EDC president Paul Aquino said this schedule was three weeks delayed. "There was a new Executive Order 348 which required every bidder of government projects to submit a clearance from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)," he said.

He said the four prospective bidders have asked EDC for an extension of the bidding schedule which has thus resulted to the new prequalification timetable.

The EDC chief said this will be the ultimate extension for the project’s bidding schedule.

"We have given them enough time. We hope they could get the BIR clearance they need," he said.

Aquino admitted that the optimization project has been long-delayed and they have already secured a P1.4-billion loan from the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) to finance it.

The optimization project will take 19 months to complete once the turnkey contract is awarded to the winning bidder.

The DBP loan to fund the Palinpinon II Optimization Project is sourced from Phase II of the Environmental Infrastructure Support Credit Program, a two-step lending facility financed by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

The EDC project is programmed to help alleviate the projected shortfall in power generation in the Visayas region.

The state-owned firm currently operates the Southern Negros Geothermal Production Field (SNGPF) consisting of the 112.5-MW Palinpinon 1 and 80-MW Palinpinon 2 projects.

EDC, a subsidiary of state-owned Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), is the country’s leading producer of geothermal energy accounting for more than 60 percent of the country’s installed generating capacity.

In addition to SNGPF, it has geothermal fields in Leyte, Bicol and Cotabato with a total capacity of 1149.4 MW.

In 2006, it will commission the 40-MW Northern Negros Geothermal Project (NNGP) in Bago City, Negros Occidental. It has also programmed to commission the Mindanao and Bacman optimization projects before 2012 to add another 60MW to its generating capacity.