MPIC weighs options on Singapore power unit

The group led by businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan is rethinking options on the 800-megawatt natural gas-fired combined cycle facility in Jurong, Singapore, following a power supply glut that has affected the entire power-generation space in the city-state.

“We’ve got several offers but we haven’t made a choice and I don’t want to say we will do a selldown. What we can say is we’re looking at a structural solution,” Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) chief financial officer David Nicol told reporters at the sidelines of the holding firm’s stockholders’ meeting on Friday.

In 2013, the group—through holding firm FPM Power Holdings Ltd.—bought from GMR Infrastructure 70 percent of PacificLight Power Pte. Ltd., operator of one of Singapore’s most efficient power plants that also sells electricity to the retail market. The remaining 30 percent stake in PacificLight is held by Petronas Power Sdn.

FPM Power is, in turn, 60-percent owned by MPIC’s Hong Kong-based parent conglomerate First Pacific and 40-percent owned by MPIC’s power unit Meralco PowerGen.

“The whole sector needs to retire capacity,” Nicol said. “There are some discussions taking place.”

In recent years, Nicol noted that the Singaporean government, for good reason, encouraged a lot of investment in power generation. The private sector heeded the call, but this has now resulted in a lot of excess capacity in the market, thereby weighing down prices.