Foreign contractors eye EDC facility

VALENCIA, Negros Oriental , Philippines - Foreign contractors are expected to bid for the transfer and reinstallation of Lopez-led Energy Development Corp.’s geothermal facility in Northern Negros to Negros Oriental.

The transfer will result in more power production capacity and sales for EDC, officials said yesterday.

Six to eight foreign bidders have expressed interest to join the auction in June, said Martha Francesca De Lusong, assistant vice-president of the Business Development Sector of EDC.

The work program will involve the dismantling and transfer of the company’s geothermal plant facilities in Northern Negros to Negros Oriental, De Lusong said.

EDC will review the bids a month after the auction, with the awarding expected within the year, De Lusong said.

“The resource in Northern Negros is only about five to 10 megawatts (MW), but the power plant or equipment has the generating capacity of 49 MW,” De Lusong said.

Hence, the EDC management decided to transfer the equipment from Northern Negros. It will be reinstalled 250 kilometers south or at the Southern Negros geothermal complex adjacent to the 20-MW Nasuji geothermal plant.

“The additional steam in this site is about 40-MW, so what we will do is run Nasulo at full load and will decide later on what to do with the Nasuji,” De Lusong said.

The Nasulo plant will start commercial operations in 2014.

EDC, through subsidiary Green Core Geothermal Inc., owns and operates the 192.5-MW Southern Negros geothermal complex, which is composed of the 112.5-MW Palimpinon-1 and the 4x20-MW Palimpinon-2 facilities.

EDC’s net income attributable to equity holders of the parent firm surged 96 percent to P2.71 billion in the first three months of the year from P1.38 billion in the same period last year on the back of better performance of subsidiaries and lower operating costs.

The power producer is looking at growing its earnings by more than 11 times to P7 billion this year as it completes a rehabilitation of the Bacon-Manito geothermal power plant in Bicol.

EDC is the world’s largest integrated producer of geothermal power. It is into the exploration, development and optimization of geothermal fields, as well as the operation and maintenance of the geothermal power plants with an aggregate capacity of 1,130 MW.