PSALM seeks offers anew for Malaya thermal power plant

MANILA, Philippines — State-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) is seeking offers for the 650-megawatt (MW) Malaya thermal power plant (TPP) in Rizal, which will be bid out in April.

PSALM has published an invitation to negotiate and submit offer for the third round of the negotiated sale process for the Malaya TPP and its underlying land.

For the third round, the agency has set the minimum price offer at P1.85 billion and the deadline for bids on April 23.

PSALM said interested parties need to submit a letter of interest (LOI) from Feb. 5 to March 5 to be able to participate in the privatization process for the government asset.

“Only interested parties that have been issued the negotiation package by the deadline will be allowed to participate further in the third round of negotiated sale process for the purchased assets,” the state-run firm said.

In the 37th Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) implementation status report prepared by the Department of Energy (DOE), PSALM declared a failure of the third round of public bidding for the sale of the Malaya TPP after none of the pre-qualified bidders submitted any bid despite a lower minimum bid price.

The two pre-qualified bidders were Panasia Energy Inc. and AC Energy Philippines Inc. (now AC Energy Corp.).

PSALM conducted two rounds of bidding for the sale of said assets which were declared a failure due to lack of interested bidders.

The agency is determined to privatize the asset, on an “as-is-where-is” basis.

From 2014, the MTPP was declared a must run unit (MRU) by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP).

From 2010 to 2019, PSALM has incurred an average annual net loss of P1.2 billion in maintaining the MTPP.