Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) has dropped its bid for the Limay diesel-fired power plant and now eyes the 600-megawatt (MW) Calaca coal-fired power plant, the Power Sector and Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) said Thursday.

At the sidelines of the recent Manila Overseas Press Club Energy Night, PSALM president Jose Ibazeta told reporters that SMC was among nine groups which expressed interest to bid for the Calaca facility.

Ibazeta said the SMC will no longer vie for Limay. "San Miguel is no longer in the list of bidders for Limay. I think, they will go for Calaca," he said.

Despite this, Ibazeta noted that Limay still has two other bidders.

According to Ibazeta, PSALM will put Calaca on the negotiation table by next month.

"We have scheduled it by June this year," he said.

Ibazeta said the bidders for Calaca consist of at least four local groups and the rest are foreign.

SMC made a foray into energy-related businesses after it bought shares in Petron Corp., the country's largest oil refiner. The government's stake in Petron was sold to the Ashmore Group and was purchased by SMC early this year.

SMC also acquired shares of the power distributor Manila Electric Co.

Apart from the beer-based conglomerate, PSALM said the Suez group has already submitted a formal notice to bid for Calaca.

Emerald Energy Corp. (EEC), formerly Calaca Holdco Inc., earlier won the bidding for Calaca with an offer of $786.53 million. But it later decided not to acquire the power plant.

PSALM will now sell the power facility through a negotiated bid after two failed bidding processes.

Ibazeta admitted, however, that they may not be able to get the same bid price for Calaca as EEC's.

The coal-fired plant is located in Barangay San Rafael, Batangas, Calaca, approximately 115 km south of Metro Manila. Its units 1 and 2 commenced commercial operations on September 11, 1984 and July 15, 1995, respectively.

The Calaca plant has utilized a mixture of high quality and lower quality coal for Unit 1 and lower quality coal for Unit 2.

The units currently operate with load restrictions due to various operational and maintenance reasons, resulting in low capacity factors and poor availability.