The Korean firm was reportedly invited by government-owned Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), which first set sights on the possibility of converting the plant’s fuel use into natural gas.

Kepco Philippines estimated that the behemoth 620-megawatt nuclear facility will require an investment of over $600 million for conversion alone; but the calculated cost, it was clarified was drawn several years ago.

“If you would factor in cost escalation in the last few years, the investment would certainly be higher,” said Kepco Philippines president and chief executive officer Gil Gu Lee.

The proposed re-powering of the BNPP has been one of the alternatives being studied to meet short-term solution to projected capacity shortages in the Luzon grid, in case, some of the programmed new power projects would not materialize.

From the start, however, the PNOC has been very much aware that aside from addressing legal and social issues, the repowering of the BNPP can only be achieved if the government can immediately build a transmission line that would bring the plant’s output to the grid.

It would be noted that the Aquino administration decided to mothball the nuclear facility due to numerous issues thrown against the project’s safety, technical viability and impact on the environment.

There were also allegations of overpricing and the perceived anomalous contract entered into by the Marcos regime with Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

With some nuclear projects in Russia and the United States still suffering drawbacks because of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents, respectively, the government then found a legitimate excuse to heed the call of some advocacy groups to stop the commercial operation of the project.

But their failure to substitute the lost capacity from the nuclear facility has been traced as one of the major factors that triggered the power crisis of the 90s.

Prior to the decision to just set it in an idle state, the facility was already 98percent complete and had already undergone pre-operation tests before coreloading had gone through painstaking investigation undertaken by the fact-finding commission created for such purpose.

However, the mothballing of the facility was not without ensuing cost to the government. In fact, this turned out as one of the State’s biggest “white elephant” and contributed the most substantial chunk of financial baggage to the government coffers.

In November 1986, the national government assumed all foreign loan and peso obligations incurred the finance of the project’s construction.