CBK welcomes Senate probe of 3 aging power plants in Laguna

An independent power producer (IPP) welcomed yesterday the ongoing Senate investigation on the alleged irregularities in the construction and rehabilitation of three aging power plants in Laguna.

Officials of CBK Power Co. Ltd. — a partnership between Argentinean firm Impsa (Industria Metalurgica Pescarmona SA) and Edison Mission Energy of the United States — said in a statement that they are prepared to cooperate with any inquiry to shed light on issues earlier raised by Sen. Sergio Osmeña III.

The issues before the Senate, which has scheduled its second hearing today, "are not new and have been thoroughly reviewed in the past," CBK Power said.

The power company is currently constructing and rehabilitating Caliraya, Botocan and Malaya, three aging power plants in Laguna. It won the project through the build-operate-transfer scheme of then President Fidel Ramos.

The project to rehabilitate the three power plants is one of the most public and most scrutinized of all IPP projects, CBK Power claimed. It took seven years from initial proposal to project implementation, CBK Power officials said, and during that time was examined and evaluated by several government agencies responsible for its review as well as Congress, the courts, the press, ratings agencies and international institutions.

"The CBK project passed through the review and scrutiny of three successive administrations, with at least three different sets of Cabinet members, heads of agencies, board directors, presidents and other officers of (the National Power Corporation)," CBK Power said.

Its officials noted that the project contract was reviewed by the inter-agency IPP review committee, which found the CBK project "to be one of only eight projects with no legal or financial issues."

Even the report made by New Zealand-based Meritec, a company hired by the National Power Corporation (NPC) to evaluate the CBK project, acknowledged that the upgrades were successful and "met or exceeded operating criteria" and concluded there were "no substantive reasons ... to withhold ... capital recovery fees," CBK Power said.

CBK Power added that the capital recovery being charged to the government is a blended capacity payment which applies to all units, both new and rehabilitated, and was arrived at through a competitive process.

"The fee has to be evaluated for the project as a whole over the entire 25-year term of the build-rehabilitate-operate-transfer (BROT) agreement, rather than comparing the revenue earned by a single unit to the estimated investment in that unit," CBK Power said.

Its officials noted that all their charges are in line with the BROT, which went through extensive reviews and legal challenges. To date, CBK Power has invested $384 million in the project.