PROCEEDS from the sale of state-owned power assets reached $19.4 billion, data from the Department of Energy showed.
In its latest report, actual collection stood at $8.5 billion as of April this year. This means the government is yet to collect some $10.9 billion from the privatization of these assets.
Of the $8.5-billion collection, $0.951 billion was placed in temporary investments while awaiting utilization.
The remaining $7.368 billion was used for the liquidation of financial obligations.
The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) is the agency mandated by Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001, to handle the sale of the remaining state power assets and financial obligations of the National Power Corp. (Napocor).
Emmanuel Ledesma Jr., PSALM president, earlier said the government stands to earn roughly $3.2 billion more from the 1,600 megawatts (MW) of power-generation capacity that will be offered to the private sector.
Among the power facilities that are up for bidding are the 32-MW Power Barge (PB) 104 in Davao City; the 727-MW Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan (CBK) hydropower facility; the Agus hydropower plant; the independent power producer administrator contracts for the Unified Leyte (UL) geothermal power plants; the 210-MW Mindanao coal-fired power plant in Misamis Oriental; and the 140-MW Casecnan multipurpose hydroelectric power plant.
The agency will also rebid the 850-MW Sucat thermal power plant.
Ledesma said PB 104 will be sold within the year; UL in the first quarter of 2015; Mindanao coal-fired power plant by mid-2015; Casecnan facility in the third quarter; and CBK in early 2016. For Agus, the PSALM board is eyeing the sale in 2017.
“There’s still roughly around 1,600 MW remaining. So assuming the rule of thumb is applied, then that’s going to be multiplied by $2 million per MW,” Ledesma said.
Only about 20 percent of government-owned power assets have yet to be privatized since PSALM took over Napocor, the PSALM official added.
So far, the biggest power facility sold by PSALM is the 218-MW Angat hydroelectric power plant to Korea Water Resources Corp. (K-Water) for P19.66 billion.
K-Water took over the facility last Friday, more than four years since it won the bidding in April 2010. The delay was caused by a number of reasons, including a court battle over the legality of PSALM’s conduct of the bidding.
The privatization of the Angat power facility will not affect the water supply from the Angat reservoir, as the Angat Dam remains the property of the Philippine government.
Other power facilities sold since Ledesma was appointed include the 153.1-MW Naga Power Plant to SPC Power Corp. for P1.14 billion, and the Ippa for 40 strips of energy of Unified Leyte Geothermal Power Plants at P4.6629 per kilowatt-hour.