Agus-Pulangui hydro-plants to undergo rehab next year

DAVAO CITY – A full-scale rehabilitation of the Agus-Pulangui Hydroelectric Power Complex will commence next year that will increase the decades-old plants’ capacity factor by more than 80 percent, Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Executive Director Romeo Montenegro said on Wednesday.

Montenegro said the government was ruling out the possibility of the plants’ privatization in the immediate term due to the objection of Mindanao lawmakers to the plan of Power Sector Assets Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) to sell these off.

The plans for privatization have also been shelved because of the recent development in the signing of the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (OLBARMM) since the future Bangsamoro government will have jurisdiction over the government’s power assets that are located within the Bangsamoro territory, Montenegro added.

“The privatization may have to be determined later on because, as you may note, it was stipulated in one of the provisions that the assets that are allocated within the Bangsamoro, the Bangsamoro government will have preferential right to own – the Agus Complex. Therefore, PSALM cannot just unilaterally make any specific decision in terms of privatizing it without reckoning with the previsions of the BOL,” he said.

He said what was more immediate was the major rehabilitation of the plants since they have been generating power at 589.26 megawatts (MW), or only 60 percent of the 982.1 MW installed capacity.

He said a mechanism will have to be arranged with the future Bangsamoro government if it would still push through with the privatization later on.

Majority of the hydro power source comes from the state-run Agus-Pulangui Hydroelectric Power Complex, comprising of seven hydroelectric plants, namely, Agus 1, Agus 2, Agus 4, Agus 5, Agus 6, and Agus 7 in the Lanao provinces; and Pulangui 4 in Bukidnon.

The rehabilitation would cost about $1 billion or about R53.78 billion which will be sourced through foreign loans, Montenegro said.

Last August 2018, the Department of Finance identified the rehabilitation of the Agus-Pulangi Hydroelectric Power Plants of the National Power Corporation (Napocor) as one of the major government projects that will be funded through possible parallel financing arragement between China and World Bank.

The actual rehabilitation works on the plants will start immediately after the six-month feasibility study will have been completed, Montenegro added. (Antonio L. Colina IV)