Philippines' Meralco eyes in Vietnam power investments

Start with Vietnam.

This is where Meralco will start its overseas investment in power generation projects.

“Some of the companies we’ve talked to there (Vietnam) are involved in power generation … they have several projects that are on the burner so we are taking a look at the opportunities there,” said its chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan. He intimated that the major attraction for power investments in that jurisdiction is the guaranteed off-take arrangement with the state-owned VietNam Electricity or EVN.

He sited the an off-take arrangement under their existing regulatory regime through EVN (VietNam Electricity) as an advantage.

The scale of power projects under Vietnam blueprints are within the capacity ranges of 150 megawatts to 600MW.

Meralco’s strategy though will be to partner with existing project proponents in that market.

He specified that the parties they are talking to in Vietnam are private enterprises, but the off-take or the purchase of the generated electricity will position state-owned EVN to underwrite power supply contracts.

“We’d take a significant minority in partnership with local partners, these are private enterprises. We don’t have first hand experience of how business operates in Vietnam, especially in the regulatory environment. So, it’s better to take certain baby steps first,” Pangilinan stressed.

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