San Miguel Corporation (PSE:SMC) seems to be the lone player in the field strongly interested in the possibility of owning and operating the Malampaya deep water gas-to-power project should the government decide to place it on the auction block. Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. (PSE:AEV), AC Infrastructure Holdings Corporation, Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (PSE:MPI) (MPIC), and DMCI Holdings, Inc. (PSE:DMC) dismissed a possible clash with SMC for the country's largest producing gas field located in offshore northwest Palawan. “Difficult to determine our interest if we don't know what is being offered and the terms of the offer.

I have not heard anything from Shell,” said Luis Miguel Aboitiz, Senior Vice President of Aboitiz Power Corp. (PSE:AP), AEV's energy unit. John Eric Francia, President and Chief Executive Officer of AC Infrastructure, said the project “is still too far down the road” which is why the country's oldest conglomerate has not put much attention to it yet.

MPIC Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said details and what would eventually be offered in the project is still a blur so the project at the moment is not in his group's radar.