Manila Electric Co., the country’s biggest energy retailer, is in talks with Japan’s Osaka Gas Co. Ltd. for a $2-billion gas-fired plant in Luzon, company chair Manuel V. Pangilinan said on Thursday.
Pangilinan told reporters that discussions involved a venture to build a power plant with a capacity ranging from 1,200 megawatts (MW) to 1,500 MW.
He described talks with Osaka Gas as being preliminary, and suggested that more meetings were needed.
“It’s under discussion. First, they have to familiarize themselves with the power industry here. They’re relatively new,” Pangilinan said at the sidelines of a briefing by Metro Pacific Investments Corp., which partly owns Meralco. also known as Manila Electric.
Assuming talks progress, he said, the project can begin construction in the next three to five years.
Also, Meralco announced that its power generating arm has been in talks with possible partners for power generation projects, including a planned 1,500 MW power plant in Atimonan, Quezon province.
In a filing on Thursday, Metro Pacific said Meralco’s power generation unit, Meralco PowerGen Corp., is speeding up investments in new generation capacity “to avert, or mitigate, looming power supply gaps.”
It said the San Buenaventura Power Ltd. (SBPL), in which MGen has a 49-percent interest with a right to nominate a preferred investor for an additional 2 percent, is in an advanced stage in developing a new 455 MW (net) coal-fired power plant in Mauban, Quezon.
SBPL, a joint venture with Electricity Generating Public Co. Ltd. of Thailand, has filed the power sales agreement with the Electricity Regulatory Commission and is currently awaiting decision to proceed. The plant is scheduled to begin commercial operation in the second half of 2018.
Following the Supreme Court’s clearance to proceed with the project, MGen’s Redondo Peninsula Energy Inc. joint venture aims to complete the two 300-MW coal-fired powered power plant in four years. Global Business Power Corp., in which Meralco has a 22-percent interest, commenced operations of subsidiary Toledo Power’s 82 MW coal-fired power plant last December. Miguel R. Camus