PSALM concludes sale of power barges

MANILA, Philippines - The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corp. has concluded the sale of Power Barges 101 to 103 to Trans-Asia Oil & Energy Corp., its top official said.

“Following the instructions from our Board, we have signed a Memorandum of Agreement with Trans-Asia which, in sum, paves the way for the sale of Power Barges 101 to 103 upon Trans-Asia’s payment within thirty days of the agreed purchase price of P420 million,” PSALM president Emmanuel Ledesma said.

PSALM signed the agreement with Trans-Asia, the power generation company of the Phinma Group last year.

PSALM bid out the barges last year with SPC Island Power, a unit of SPC Power Corp. emerging as the highest bidder with P545.89 million but the company decided to terminate its asset purchase agreement with the government after PB 103 suffered severe damage from Super Typhoon Yolanda last year.

As such, PSALM decided to negotiate with Trans-Asia, the second highest bidder.

For its part, PSALM has committed to shoulder part of the cost of the repair of the barges of up to P20 million to help expedite the privatization.

These power barges are nominal 32-megawatt (MW) barge-mounted bunker-fired diesel generatingpower stations that consist of four identical Hitachi-Sulzer diesel generator units rated at eight MW each.  PBs 101-102 are currently stationed at Bo. Obrero in Iloilo City and were commissioned in 1981.  PBs 103 and 104 are moored in Botongon, Estancia, Iloilo and at the Holcim Compound, Ilang, Davao City, respectively and began operating in 1985.

The government offered the barges in two packages consisting of PB 101, 102 and 103 for the first package and PB 104 as the second package. 

Bidding for PB 104 was declared a failure because bidders did not meet the requirements, according to PSALM.