Tag Archives: power plant

Tablon power plant to use coal: official

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Goldstar Daily News
Lito Rulona

IS it going to be a coal-fired power plant or not?

When the city council gave the Cagayan de Oro Corn Products Inc. the green light to construct and operate a power plant in Tablon, it was because of a supposed assurance that the firm would not be using coal.

But a barangay councilor in Tablon said the six-megawatt power plant would be coal-fired in times when the supply of biomass are insufficient or not available.

Tablon barangay councilor Angelo Pomar revealed this on local radio even as he vouched that a public consultation was made in his village before the barangay council gave the firm the go-ahead.

Pomar’s pronouncement contradicted Councilor Zaldy Ocon’s claims.

Ocon, chairman of the city council’s environment committee, said he endorsed the project before the city council after the firm’s lawyer Arnold Barba assured in writing that the power plant would not be coal-fired.

A biomass-fired power plant generates fuel from scrap wood, forest resources, and other waste residues while coal-fired power plants generate electricity through burning coal.

The opposition to the Cagayan Corn Product’s project is snowballing. The environment watchdog Sulog said it was preparing a petition even as it questioned the city council’s nod on the controversial project.

Sulog has also questioned the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau for supposedly giving the Tablon project the green light.

Environmental activist and Cooperative Development Authority chairman Orlando Ravanera, Sulog chairman, said the group met over the weekend, and agreed to release a petition to question the city council, and the DENR-EMB for giving the firm an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC).

Ravanera said the group that include representatives of Xavier University, Task Force Macajalar, various religious organizations, farmer, fisherfolk, indigenes, and other stakeholders, would also seek a Writ of Kalikasan from Court of Appeals.

“It is a question of money and conscience,” Ravanera said. “We are wondering why, despite the position papers sent to the city council and EMB, they still approved it.”

Ravanera said it was clear the firm would operate a coal-fired power plant in the middle of a residential area, adding that the firm “has a history of violating environmental laws.”

He said massive protest actions were being planned against the project, and officials who favor it.

“Kamo diha sa city council and barangay pamati-on sab nato ang demand sa mga mag-uuma and fisherfolk,” Ravanera.

EMB regional director Sabdullah Abubacar however said the firm submitted all the required documents. He said an ECC was issued because the firm complied with all the requirements.

PSALM selling Iligan power plant assets

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BusinessWorld Online
August 8, 2013

THE POWER Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) is seeking offers to purchase various disposable assets, worth P32 million, of the 98-megawatt (MW) Iligan diesel power plant.

In a notice published yesterday, PSALM’s Bids and Awards Committee said it will dispose unserviceable assets of the plant in Lanao del Norte — which was already turned over to Mapalad Power Corp. in the first quarter of this year.

Specifically, PSALM is seeking bids for a fuel tank and associated pipeline, as well as the stock fuel of the power plant.

The remaining fuel consists of 2.27 million liters of industrial fuel oil, 73,873 liters of industrial diesel oil, and 7,435 liters of engine lubricating oil.
BusinessWorld Online
August 8, 2013

PSALM has set a minimum bid price of P32 million for the assets, and interested parties should pay a non-refundable fee of P10,000 for the bidding documents.

The state firm has scheduled the auction for Sept. 4, with a pre-bid conference on Aug. 23.

PSALM was formed under Republic Act 9136 or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 to assume ownership of and manage all of National Power Corp.’s assets, liabilities, contracts with independent power producers, real estate and other disposable assets. — Claire-Anne Marie C. Feliciano

Swiss challenge for Iligan plant held up

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BusinessWorld Online
October 23, 2011

CAGAYAN DE ORO — The Iligan City council has deferred the Swiss challenge for the 103-megawatt Iligan diesel-fired plant complex as it awaits the Commission on Audit’s recommended updated ceiling price for the power asset.

Conal Holdings Corp., under the Alcantara Group, last year submitted an unsolicited offer of P300 million for the two-plant complex.

While the period for the Swiss challenge was originally scheduled to end on Oct. 13, the city council decided last week to hold off the exercise until the Commission on Audit (CoA) recommended a ceiling price, Councilor Moises G. Dalisay, Jr., chairman of the ad hoc committee on the power plants’ disposal, said in a telephone interview last weekend.

Norberto J. Oller, vice-president of the Lanao Power Consumers Federation, noted in a separate phone interview that previous appraisals placed the power complex’s value at P2.1 billion (CoA, in a 2007 report), P1.9 billion (National Power Corp.) and P1.8 billion (Lanao Consumers Federation).

The City of Iligan acquired the 7.9-hectare power plant complex under a compromise agreement with the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp., following the latter’s failure to settle real estate tax liabilities for the asset.

The $110-million power plant complex was commissioned in 1993 as a joint build-operate-transfer (BOT) undertaking of the Alcantara Group and Tomen Corp. of Japan, called Northern Mindanao Power Corp. (NMPC).

Previously designated as NMPC-1 (60.9 megawatts) and NMPC-2 (42 megawatts), the plants were renamed as Iligan Diesel Power Plant 1 and 2 when ownership of the two units was turned over to the National Power Corp. on July 31, 2003 and on Feb. 9, 2006, respectively, after the BOT contract expired.

Three investor groups subsequently expressed interest to bid for the power plant complex and conducted due diligence on the units.

However, only Conal Holdings and Energy Developer Co. Ltd. of Seoul, South Korea — a company involved in renewable energy generation — were eventually deemed qualified by the city’s bids and awards committee to vie for ownership of the plant. — M. D. Baños