Semirara asks court to block DOE asset disclosure demand

MANILA, Philippines — The Consunji Group is seeking court protection to block the Department of Energy (DOE) from forcing it to disclose proprietary information for sharing with other bidders in the Semirara coal mine auction.

In its petition before a Makati court, Consunji-led Semirara Mining and Power Corp. (SMPC) challenged the DOE’s repeated demands for detailed information on its assets, including geological and technical data.

SMPC said the DOE, in four separate letters, also directed the submission of a detailed inventory of its equipment, including those specially reconfigured to manage stronger water flows into the Acacia mine.

Citing its coal operating contract and the Coal Development Act, the company argued that it owns these assets and that they should neither be made available to rival bidders nor factored into their bid submissions.

SMPC said the government could take ownership of the assets only if the company fails to remove them from the production and exploration area within one year after its current contract expires in July 2027.

“Government ownership of these assets is merely future and conditional,” the operator of the country’s largest coal mining site said.

The government is bidding out SMPC’s coal contract on Semirara Island in Antique after rejecting the company’s appeal to extend its operations.

But the auction process, as first reported by The STAR, has been postponed as the DOE finalizes the terms of reference and addresses clarifications raised by prospective bidders.

“The bidding is supposed to choose a winner that has a viable mine plan and knows how to run one to make sure coal production is seamless to protect the country’s baseload electricity generation. It is not about SMPC and how it runs the mine,” SMPC stressed.

The petition, the company said, is not intended to stop or delay the bidding process but to clarify a legal issue that could prejudice its legal and financial interests.

“SMPC believes the bidding process is best served when each participant undertakes its own technical studies and develops its own approach, rather than relying on information generated through SMPC’s decades of investments and expertise,” it said.

SMPC chairman and CEO Isidro Consunji said earlier that the company is preparing the “best mine plan” for the auction while continuing normal operations.

Energy Secretary Sharon Garin, meanwhile, said the DOE has yet to receive a copy of SMPC’s petition, but noted that the Semirara coal auction process would push through as planned.

“I don’t want to touch on the merits of the case, but I would rather say that it (petition) will not delay (the auction) because we have enough information to bid out the project,” Garin said in a chance interview yesterday.