CONSIDERING the late start of the summer season this year, the National Power Corp. (Napocor) is looking at its power output, particularly for Luzon, to be more than enough to meet the demand for electricity this hot season.

“With summer actually kicking off last March 24, even the forecasted demand of 6,111 megawatts [MW] at that time did not materialize with the actual demand only reaching 5,900 MW,” Cyril del Callar, Napocor president, said.

The Napocor official noted that summer actually came in late, adding the state firm expects the level of power supply to be more than enough.

Del Callar further said he does not see any problem and that the state power firm is not looking at any speculative movement of plants, which are all on stand-by mode.

Del Callar said that any preventive maintenance has all been rescheduled to July, particularly at the onset of the rainy season.

Del Callar also said all of Napocor’s hydroelectric power plants have water level that are above their rule curve, meaning that all the dams from Ambuklao to Magat, Casecnan, Pantabangan and Angat have more than sufficient water right now.

Del Callar added that Napocor has a diversified fuel mix that’s independent from oil and coal, and mostly dependent on natural gas.

“So we are not expecting any major event or situation and we are prepared for the worst-case scenario,” said del Callar.

Considering the extended drought last year, he reiterated that they only increased the dispatch of oil-based power plant by one-percentage point, stressing that Napocor has already diversified its fuel mix.

In terms of the pricing, del Callar said Napocor has reflected in the billing of all our customers (140 distribution utilities and electric cooperative) a downward adjustment every month since January.

Del Callar added Napocor expects every quarter to have a sustainable same level of adjustments of what it is recovering from the last quarter of last year.

“There’s no need to speculate on the movement of the volatile oil-price market and coal-price market, thus the power sector is quite stable in terms of pricing levels over the next three months,” said del Callar.

CONSIDERING the late start of the summer season this year, the National Power Corp. (Napocor) is looking at its power output, particularly for Luzon, to be more than enough to meet the demand for electricity this hot season.

THE spike in the price of imported rice in the world market has prompted the National Food Authority (NFA) to review its budget for rice imports.

THE Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) has extended a P12-billion credit facility to the Department of Agriculture (DA) to support the department’s initiatives to boost the production of rice and other food crops.

DOMESTIC manufacturers called on the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to correct its administrative order on voluntary disclosure as they believe the policy only emboldens further unscrupulous importers to misdeclare their shipments, as they are still allowed to avail themselves of the program even after they have been issued an audit notification letter (ANL).

TAXPAYERS’ money, instead of being plowed to better social services and other programs of the government, would instead go to another state-owned company should the government decide to renationalize Petron Corp.

A LOCAL nongovernment organization (NGO) warned the government that the social costs of continuing the Laiban Dam project will far outweigh the economic benefits the dam will give residents.

CLARK FREE PORT—Over a year after receiving the Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation (Capa) Low-cost Airport of the Year 2006 award, the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) again bagged the Airport of the Year award for airports with below 15 million passengers annually at the 2008 Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific Aerospace and Defense Awards Banquet held in Singapore on March 14.