The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) has declared the auction for the 650 MW Malaya thermal plant a failure due to lack of bidders.
AC Energy, Inc. was the lone bidder of the thermal plant.
“Unfortunately, PSALM was constrained to declare a failure of bidding during the public bidding held for the Malaya plant today,” PSALM president Irene Garcia told BusinessMirror reporters on Wednesday.
“This was because there was only one bidder that submitted a bid,” she added.
PSALM’s Bidding Procedures state that an auction will be deemed a failure if only one bid is received.
Garcia noted that PSALM will rebid the structures, plant equipment, and the land of the power plant.
“PSALM will commence the second round of bidding as soon as possible once the schedule is cleared with the Board. While it is unfortunate that the bidding failed, PSALM remains very much committed to privatize the Malaya Power Plant this year,” she said.
“Failure of the first round of bidding will not deter us from trying again, and again, until we are able to successfully dispose of this asset,” Garcia added.
Back in 2018, 11 companies expressed their intent to PSALM to participate in the said bidding. Out of the 11 firms only four companies qualified to bid.
These were AC Energy Inc., FGEN Reliable Energy Holdings Inc., D.M. Wenceslao & Associates Inc., and DMCI Power Corporation.
However, only AC Energy Inc. formally submitted a bid before the Bid Submission Deadline on September 5, 12:00 noon.
D.M. Wenceslao & Associates Inc. informed PSALM through a letter that they decided to withdraw “due to current market conditions and uncertainty of supply of fuel.”
FGEN Reliable Energy Holdings, Inc. and DMCI Power Corporation did not indicate the reason behind their withdrawal from the bidding.
PSALM partnered with a third party consultant to follow the required government procurement procedure under R.A. 9184.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was tasked by PSALM to do an estimation of the Malaya plant, structures, and underlying plant.