New York-listed AES Philippines Corp. interested in participating in the bidding for the energy contracts of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) with independent power producers (IPPs).

The contracts are set to be bid out by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) in August this year.

“We’re interested in bidding for some of the Napocor-IPP contracts,” Matthew L. Bartley, president of AES Philippines, told reporters in an interview.

AES, through its local wholly-owned subsidiary Masinloc Power Partners Co. Ltd. (MPPC), won the bidding for the power plant in a state auction held in July last year with an offer of $930 million, well above the $650-million price ceiling set by the government.

The AES official said that they are just waiting for the details in the IPP contract-bidding process.

Bartley, however, admitted that the company has yet to identify which plants or contracts they would bid for.

In another development, Bartley revealed that AES Philippines is generating a total of 570-megawatts (MW) from just 150-MW when they took over the 600-MW Masinloc coal-fired power plant in April this year.

“We’ve already increased the capacity and both units are running now. And we are now sort of busy negotiating for contracts and preparing for the interim open access,” said Bartley.

The AES official also noted that they have currently talked to around four to five potential off-takers.

Bartley pitched that AES is willing to sell power to anyone who wants to purchase.

“We have a capacity of 200-MW and possibly more that we can sell to potential off-takers when interim open-access kicks off,” he added.

Ernesto Pantangco, president of the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association Inc. (Pippa), earlier said interim open access will not immediately bring down rates.

“With our proposal for interim open access, customers of 1-megawatts (MW) and above will now have a third option which is to contract directly with suppliers beyond the distribution utility and electric cooperatives,” said Pantangco.

He said if a consumer avails of the special ecozone rate of P3.27 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) offered by the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), and a hydro offers P3/kWh, the consumer will obviously shift to the hydro power plant.  

“What we’re saying is that let competition, market and consumers decide. If power is so crucial to the consumers’ operation and as long as they’re willing to pay for the premium, then so be it,” he added.

Pantangco added that all generation-companies, including the newly-privatized Napocor assets that are under the mandated 30-percent market cap in a grid and 25-percent of the national grid, will be allowed to compete.

MOBILE-phone users may finally see rates go down. This, as the country’s telecommunications companies recently said they will carefully study proposals from the National Telecommunications Commission’s (NTC), which seek to limit access charges in short message service (SMS) to not more than P0.15 and put a cap of P1.50 per minute for cellular calls.

Worst beating yet for Meralco

TWO of the Lopez-controlled listed companies were among last week’s biggest losers. These were First Philippine Holdings Corp., an index stock and Benpres Holdings Corp.

New York-listed AES Philippines Corp. interested in participating in the bidding for the energy contracts of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) with independent power producers (IPPs).

PUERTO Princesa—Publicly listed Holcim Philippines Inc. is calibrating its industry growth projections for the year to only 6 percent to 8 percent due to uncertainties caused by the US sub-prime mess and resulting recession, as well as the continued increase in prices of construction materials. 

REAL-estate firm Eton Properties Philippines Inc. is looking at developing two more properties in Cebu and Batangas, while still undertaking the construction of 10 existing projects.

IT was indeed a busy week for Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) president and general manager Winston Garcia. There was, of course, the annual stockholders meeting of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) on Tuesday where the Lopez Group seemingly won Round 1 by retaining the management status quo chaired by Manuel Lopez.