Malampaya troubles cause Metro blackouts

Manila, Philippines -  Parts of Metro Manila suffered rotating blackouts yesterday due to low output and unexpected shutdown of several key power plants that electrify Luzon.

“The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) asked us to implement a three-hour rotating power interruption or manual load dropping schedule from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.,”said Joe Zaldarriaga, external communications manager of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

In a text message, Department of Energy Undersecretary Josefina Patricia Asirit said the outage was due to the operational troubles at the Malampaya gas-to-power project in northwest Palawan.

The Malampaya field, which is operated by Shell Philippines Exploration B.V., fuels three power plants with a combined capacity of 2,700 megawatts (MW), equivalent to about 36 percent of Luzon’s power generation requirements.

“There was a slight tripping in the turbines (Friday) night... It is running but at a reduced offtake,”Toby Nebrida, media relations manager of Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., said in a phone interview.

“What the NGCP did was it recommended the rotating (blackout) schedule to Meralco,” Nebrida said.

NGCP officials were not immediately available for comment yesterday.

The Malampaya projects fuel the 1,000-MW Sta. Rita and 500-MW San Lorenzo natural gas power plants of First Gen Corp. and the 1,200-MW Ilijan natural gas plant of SMC Global Power Holdings Corp. All plants are located in Batangas.

“The issue is gas supply, not power plant,”Ernesto Pantangco, executive vice president of Lopez-led First Gen, said in a text message.

The situation was aggravated by an unexpected shutdown of a coal-fired plant in Pangasinan.

“Sual is also in unplanned outage,” Asirit said.

TeaM Energy Philippines Corp., a joint venture between Japanese firms Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Marubeni Corp., is the builder and operator the 1,200-MW Sual power plant.

The facility’s independent power producer contract administrator is San Miguel Corp.