Two groups vie for Clark O&M

MANILA, Philippines — Only two groups have submitted bid documents for the operations and maintenance (O&M) contract of Clark International Airport, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority BCDAsaid yesterday.

The bidders are X-Droid, composed of Indonesia’s Angkasa Pura II, Globalport 900, Mazy Capital and Desco, and the North Luzon Airport Consortium whose members are Filinvest Development Corp., JG Summit Holdings Inc., Philippine Airport Ground Support Solutions Inc. and Changi Airport Philippines Pte. Ltd.

The project involves a 25-year concession to operate Clark airport’s existing terminal building, as well as the new terminal building to be built by the group of Megawide-GMR which bagged the engineering, procurement and construction contract in December last year.

The O&M contract is targeted to be awarded by December. 

The International Finance Corp.-World Bank is acting as lead transaction adviser to BCDA in the conduct of the bidding activities for the Clark International Airport project.

“Upon award, the O&M concessionaire will finance, design and complete all fitout for the existing and new passenger terminals,” the BCDA said.

The Clark International Airport is set to be the next premier gateway to Asia and will open in the first half of 2020.The airport’s new terminal building is the first of the Duterte administration’s hybrid infrastructure projects, and complements other high-impact legacy projects in Central Luzon such as New Clark City and the Subic-Clark Railway.

The Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) thoroughly evaluated the eligibility of the submitted documents.

  BCDA SBAC chairperson Joshua Bingcang said there are still two more stages for the bidding process, the technical and financial evaluation.

“Our target (results of prequalification test) is next Friday. So if we can finish early the evaluation, by Friday next week we will have the opening of the technical (bids). That’s the target. They will be notified that they passed the pre-qualification test,” Bingcang told reporters.

The opening of the bids was originally scheduled on Nov. 5, but was postponed as the bidders sought for an extension.

Bid submission for the project was originally scheduled on July 20 and the target awarding of O&M contract was on Aug. 30.

BCDA president and chief executive officer Vivencio Dizon earlier said delays in the original schedules were due to the request for extensions by the bidders.

“Until now we are getting bidders’ requests to extend their time, but we cannot afford any more delays. We are behind by four months, the original date of submission is July. Now it’s November,” Bingcang said.

Bingcang said the existing terminal of the airport is targeted to be turned over 180 days upon award as they want the O&M concessionaire to be onboard already.

“We don’t want the building to be completed and then the incoming operator will say that’s not what we want. So we want them to be part still of the construction stage,”Bingcang said.

  In May, the BCDA said seven companies bought bidding documents for the O&M contract, namely Megawide-GMR; Metro Pacific Investments Corp. Filinvest Development Corp.; San Miguel Holdings Corp.; Prime Asset Ventures Inc.; the Central Luzon Infrastructure Consultancy, Inc. consortium; GVK Airport Developers Ltd.; and Groupe ADP.

MPIC, however, lost its appetite to participate in the bidding for the project as it has encountered some problems regarding the proposed concession agreement.

“While MPIC expressed its interest to support the government’s Build Build Build initiative for Clark Airport, we find the current draft of the concession agreement extremely challenging, given the identified material risks that were not addressed,” the firm said.

“The schedule of the bid submission further made participation in the bid very difficult, considering that the final draft of the concession agreement was released only yesterday. For the foregoing reasons, MPIC is unlikely to submit a bid for the project,” it added.