After terminating its 330-megawatt fixed priced power supply agreement (PSA) due to the recently rendered verdict of the Court of Appeals, a subsidiary of SMC Global Power Holdings Corp. has offered a replacement power supply deal to power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco). Meralco First Vice President and Regulatory Head Jose Ronald Valles said that SMC subsidiary  South Premiere Power Corporation (SPPC) offers a 300MW supply from its Ilijan plant, which is now running on liquefied natural gas. He explained that the new offer will replace the terminated 330MW fixed priced contract that SMC has been previously supplying from the Sual coal-fired power plant. “We immediately looked for a replacement capacity from different power suppliers and we've written several power suppliers, most of them or all of them declined -- only one responded, that is San Miguel,” Valles noted. He emphasized that the new offer of SMC is priced at P1.75 per kilowatt hour (kWh) for the fixed cost component while the fuel pass-through will be indexed on the Platts JKM (Japan Korea marker) LNG pricing. The duration of the emergency power supply agreement (EPSA) solicited by Meralco is for the period  Aug. 26, 2023 until March 25, 2024 -- provided that this will be approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission. “San Miguel made an offer, it's the one on the table, that is Ilijan for the 330 MW. If we are able to sign that and are able to get approval from the ERC, then we can implement that immediately and add that to the 480 MW that we are already implementing and that will have a term of until March 25, 2024,” he stressed. Valles conveyed “the nominated power plant is SPPC only, which will run on LNG.” The Ilijan resumed its generation of electricity in June this year, after the arrival of the first LNG shipment that had been procured for the facility. A legal scuffle ensued after the ERC junked the rate hike petition of the SMC subsidiary firms – SPPC and San Miguel Energy Corporation (SMEC) – which would have covered six-month fuel cost recoveries after sudden surge of fuel commodities in the world market due to the Russia-Ukraine war. The ERC’s denial of the rate hike ended what could have been cheaper fixed price contracts and that prompted almost all industry players to opt for power supply deals with fuel pass-through provision in their contracts, which consequently hiked the tariffs being passed on to consumers.