MANILA - Top Philippine electricity producer National Power Corp. (Napocor) said on Wednesday it had cancelled plans to award 715,000 tons in coal supply contracts since the power plants it was seeking the coal for had been privatized.

The state-run power firm held 3 separate tenders for 11 lots of 65,000 tons each in July and September to buy steam coal for the Pagbilao and Sual coal power stations in the main Luzon island.

Napocor said on its website that it did not proceed with the award of 585,000 tons of coal and cancelled the evaluation of bids for another 130,000 tons because the Sual and Pagbilao power plants had been privatized.

The energy unit of Philippine food-to-power conglomerate San Miguel Corp. took over control of the 1,000-megawatt Sual plant earlier this month after submitting the highest bid at a tender in August.

Therma Luzon Inc., a subsidiary of Aboitiz Equity Ventures, secured the contract for the 700-MW Pagbilao facility.

The deal requires the 2 companies to procure coal and other fuel for the power plants.

Napocor has awarded nearly 1.4 million tons in coal supply contracts to several Indonesian suppliers this year, just a third of the 4.18 million tons that the company imported in 2008, after privatising a number of coal-fed power facilities.

The power firm earlier postponed indefinitely a tender for supply of 50,000 tons of steam coal meant for its Naga-Cebu thermal power plant in the central Philippines.