State-owned Philippine National Oil Co. rejected the lease offer of Energy Oil and Gas Holdings Inc. of businessman Gregorio Araneta III for a planned energy city in Limay, Bataan.
PNOC president Reuben Lista said in a letter to Araneta on June 13 that after a thorough deliberation, EOGHI’s offer “remains unacceptable” to the board.
EOGHI wants to lease the entire 220 hectares owned by PNOC’s former subsidiary Alternative Fuels Corp. PNOC, however, found the company’s lease offer below the fair rental value.
Lista said PNOC AFC Industrial Park “will now be open for applications to locate/lease” subject to applicable laws or regulations…as we as applicable terms of offer.
“EOGHI may now submit new proposal and the same will be evaluated in the same footing with other applications,” the official said.
EOGHI previously signed a memorandum of agreement with PNOC Alternative Fuels to a lease agreement for 90 hectares inside the industrial complex but failed to get an approval from the previous PNOC board.
The agreement expired in June 2015 and Lista wrote EOGHI for a new proposal shortly after he was appointed as PNOC president in November 2016.
Lista said that since the previous agreement lapsed, the new PNOC board was no longer bound by it.
The entire PNOC property in Limay covers about 220 hectares but Araneta’s group initially wanted only about 90 hectares, which raised questions to the government on what will happen to the remaining 130 hectares.
Based on succeeding negotiations with the government, EOGHI expressed willingness to lease the entire 220 hectares but wanted PNOC to “clean up” the areas that were not developed and had informal settlers living in it.
EOGHI’s latest proposal did not sit well with the PNOC board, thus its revised offer was rejected.
Officials said there was “no improvement” in EOGHI’s new offer, prompting the PNOC board to reject it.
Araneta chairs Helios Solar Energy Corp. which, together with its partner Soleq, owns the 132.5-megawatt solar farm in Negros Occidental.
The P10-billion project, the country’s biggest solar farm, was completed in March last year.
