AboitizPower eyes sale of Batangas biomass plant

MANILA, Philippines — Aboitiz Power Corp. is hoping to finally unload its 8.8-megawatt (MW) biomass power plant in Lian, Batangas after it hired Astoca Inc. to sell the assets.

“We’ve appointed a company called Astoca to liquidate the assets, to look for buyers,” AboitizPower COO Emmanuel Rubio said in an interview.

Based on its website, Astoca—short for “assets to cash”—is a leading industrial asset disposal and valuation advisory company in Asia.

Rubio said the sale process for the biomass plant has already started

“Let’s see. I think that’s going to be a better process than us going direct (in selling),” he said.

In May 2018, AboitizPower announced plans to sell the biomass power project after it decided to stop operating the facility.

The firm garnered interests from two parties—one local and one foreign—to acquire the power facility. However, nothing has materialized from discussions with the interested parties.

The 8.8-MW biomass plant is the group’s first biomass project, which was supposed to start commercially operating in the second quarter of 2017.

It is under Aseagas Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of AboitizPower through Aboitiz Renewables Inc., its holding company for investments in renewable energy.

However, Aseagas permanently ceased operations of the facility in January 2018. Before that, the plant was previously placed on extended shutdown towards the end of 2017 due to lack of feedstock.

As a result of the closure, total value affected is estimated to be at P3.7 billion, which represents Aseagas invested equity of P3.45 billion and the company’s estimated remaining obligations of around P250 million.