Updated March 28, 2009 12:00 AM [ philstar.com ]
MANILA, Philippines - Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will start directly distributing electricity to the Carmelray Industrial Park in Laguna next week.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Meralco said it has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Calmelray-JTCI Corp. (CTC) and CIP II Power Corp. (CIPP) allowing CIPP to transfer to Meralco its rights and obligations under the concession contract which gave CIPP the exclusive right to sell electricity to the locators of Carmelray Industrial Park II.
CIPP also signed a MOA with Meralco for the transfer of ownership of the existing electric distribution system in the ecozone to Meralco, upon Meralco’s payment of a purchase price still to be agreed upon by the parties.
In a separate statement, Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp. said the transfers will take effect on April 9, 2009 or upon the approval of the agreements by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and, if necessary, by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
CIPP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trans-Asia Oil.
Trans-Asia Oil earlier said it has not made any reallocation of the P378.5 million proceeds of its rights offering originally intended to finance the expansion of its 21-megawatt (MW) bunker-fired power plant at the CIP II.
In December last year, Trans-Asia Oil and CIPP announced that they “are constrained to suspend the plant expansion.”
The company said it decided to forego its expansion plans as “the projected increase in demand for electricity based on the projected growth in number and size of industrial users did not materialize.”
Trans-Asia Oil added that the drop in electricity demand due to the US economic downturn and the fuel price risks were among the factors that made the company decide to suspend its expansion plans.
“Trans-Asia Oil is scheduled to determine and decide, by the first quarter of 2009, on whether to proceed with the plant expansion,” it said.
Trans-Asia Oil also disclosed it approved a cash dividend of four centavos for all shareholders as of March 29, 2009 payable on April 27, 2009.
The company has a total generating capacity placed at 76.4 MW which includes the 52-MW power plant in Norzagaray, the 3.4-MW plant in Guimaras and the 21-MW CIPP in Laguna. — Donnabelle Gatdula
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