CONAL Holdings Corp. (CHC) plans to put up a coal-fired power plant in Zamboanga within the next five years.
Antonio Miguel Alcantara, CHC financial analyst, said the company started the initial studies on the proposed project, which will help secure Western Mindanao’s power supply.
“If you look at Mindanao grid right now, there’s no capacity for ancillary services, which are dispatchable reserves and peaking plant,” he said.
CHC is a joint venture between Thailand’s EGKO and the Alcantara group, a local conglomerate with interests in power generation and property development.
CHC has interests in a number of diesel-fired power plants in Mindanao, which relies on generation of state-owned hydroelectric facilities for bulk of its power supply.
Alcantara said the company is looking at putting up a 100-megawatt coal plant in Zamboanga by 2016
“The way we look at Mindanao, our target market will be Central and Western Mindanao . . . So that way, we can actually share the market and not go head-to-head,” he said, referring to Aboitiz Power Corp., which is CHC’s partner in some diesel plants in the region.
Besides the Zamboanga project, CHC is also putting up a 200-megawatt coal plant in Saranggani province.
“Construction is targeted to start in around August or September, as we plan to achieve financial closure by June or July,” Alcantara said.
The company plans to tap a consortium of banks led by Banco de Oro Unibank to finance the project. Daelim of Korea will conduct the engineering, procurement, and construction of the plant.EUAN PAULO C. AÑONUEVO
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