MANILA, Philippines - Manila Electric Co., the country's largest power distributor, is looking at power generation opportunities in Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar, as it embarks on international expansion.

"We're looking at (Myanmar) but nothing specific, nothing definite at this stage. Well, we're checking opportunities in Thailand as well," Meralco chairman Manuel Pangilinan said.

Meralco, he said, is considering the feasibility of setting up a gas-fired power plant in Thailand because of that country's natural gas resources.

"Fuel sources supplied are by (Thai) government through PTT and the power producers are given an off take... The returns are not high because you are protected in both ends-- on the fuel source and on the offtake. So your risks are basically execution on building the plant," he said.

For Vietnam, Pangilinan said Meralco may build a power plant but will have to source its fuel requirement.  Earlier, he said Meralco is looking at power generation opportunities in Vietnam for projects ranging from 150  to 600 MW.

He said some companies have offered to partner with Meralco on some power projects.

"With the companies that we saw (in Vietnam), some of the are involved in power generation principally and so they had several projects. They have several projects that are on the burner so we said that we’d be interested in looking at the opportunities there," he said.

Earlier, Meralco president Oscar Reyes said the company will initially look at technical assistance for these overseas projects before finalizing any investment.

"We are seeing exciting opportunities within and even outside the Philippines. The key for us is our ability to integrate these opportunities to our core business. We will venture into a project if we are able to robustly deliver highly cost competitive power and high service reliability assurance to our customers and acceptable returns to our shareholders," he said.