Maynilad Water Services Inc., the water utility of Metro Pacific Investment Corp., may consider Manila Bay as source of potable water for its concession area in Metropolitan Manila and nearby towns if the cost of desalination comes down or large consumers such as factories start extracting water from the salt-water bay for their needs.
In Cebu, where fresh water source isn’t as abundant as in Luzon, the Filinvest Development Group has turned to desalination as solution to the water supply problem of the economic engine of the Visayas.
“Maynilad continues to assess the viability of desalination using water from Manila Bay,” Maynilad chief operating officer Randolph Estrellado told Context.ph.
“This option is not yet included in the existing approved business plan given the significantly higher cost per cubic meter of desalinated water compared to our existing tariff,” he added.
He said current technology places the cost of desalinated water as much as 20 times more expensive than producing water drawn from Laguna de Bay.
Estrellado said the variable cost of treating water from Laguna de Bay is between P4 and P6 per cubic meter depending on the quality of the raw water from the fresh water lake. Desalination cost ranges from P70 to P80 per cubic meter of water, he added.
“But we continue to monitor developments in technology and costs to see if we can justify using desalination among our water sources,” Estrellado said.
Maynilad is close to completing a third water treatment plant in Muntinlupa, which will produce an additional 150 million liters of water a day, increasing production from Laguna de Bay by 50 percent to 450 million liters a day.
The new treatment plant is expected to be fully operational early in 2024.Maynilad, however, doesn’t plan to increase the current 300,000 connections served by the Muntinlupa water treatment facilities to improve the quality of service in the area and allow a buffer for future maintenance.
Angat dam in Bulacan currently supplies 90 percent of Metro Manila’s water requirements but a growing population and future El Niño episodes make it imperative for water concessionaires to find other water sources. Estrellado said the cost of producing water from Angat dam—before additional tariff cost from network operation and maintenance a well a waste water expenditures—is P0.40 per cubic meter.
Over the next five years, Maynilad plans a capital expenditure of P163 billion.
In the meantime, Maynilad plans to spend P4 billion between 2023 and 2029 to repair and replace the remaining 1,000 kilometers of the 3,000 kilometers pipeline to reduce non-revenue water to 20 percent from the current 43 percent.
Estrellado said once the pipeline repair and replacement is completed, the result would be like adding water supply produced by three new units of the Muntilupa water treatment complex.
As for desalination, Estrellado said if factories start to consider building their own desalination plants to reduce their water cost, then Maynilad may have to build its own facility to avoid losing customers and help shield residential customers whose water bills are actually subsidized by bigger water consumers.
“If factory users leave the system, then there will be less high-paying accounts that subidize the residential customers,” he said.
