PSALM aims to pay $2.66B in debts this year

State-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) is confident it can settle all of its maturing obligations for the year, amounting to $2.66 billion (or more than P100 billion).

PSALM president and CEO Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. said in an interview that the corporation would be able to pay these obligations with the help of the P50 billion in loans from two government financial institutions, Land Bank of the Philippines and Development Bank of the Philippines.

“The P25-billion LandBank facility that PSALM availed itself of early this year was used to pay maturing obligations, the bulk of which fell due in March,” Ledesma said.

Of the total maturing loans worth $2.66 billion, $1.38 billion was an obligation of another state firm, National Power Corp., while the remaining $1.28 billion was due to independent power plant (IPP) producers.

As of the end 2010, Napocor’s total liabilities stood at $15.8 billion, down slightly from the previous year’s $16.5 billion.

PSALM, which was created in 2001, has been tasked not only to handle the privatization of Napocor’s generation assets and contracted capacities, but also to clean up the power firm’s debts.

Also, Ledesma said PSALM was ready to resume the sale of the remaining power-generation assets and contracted capacities of the government, as was earlier announced by Energy Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras.

According to Ledesma, PSALM was targeting to start the bidding for the IPP administrator contract for the 149-megawatt Naga power facility by July.

Almendras earlier said the IPPA contract for the 640-MW Unified Leyte geothermal complex would likewise be pursued within the third quarter despite a pending House bill seeking the deferment of the auction.

The sale of the Agus-Pulangi hydropower complex in Mindanao would also push through although no definite date has been set.

Almendras said the Department of Energy had started talks with Congress on the privatization of the hydropower facilities, which supply more than half of Mindanao’s electricity requirements.—Amy R. Remo