Monday, January 28, 2013

Suweco taps ICCP for P4-b loan

Manila Standard Today
By Alena Mae S. Flores  Posted on Jan. 28, 2013 at 12:01am
Sunwest Water and Electric Co. Inc., a local developer of renewable energy sources, has tapped investment bank Investment & Capital Corp. of the Philippines as lead arranger for a P4-billion loan to finance four proposed hydro projects.
Suweco chairman Elizaldy Co said ICCP would raise the project financing and negotiate with the interested banks.
Co owns Sunwest Water and Hotel Enterprises of the Philippines Inc., which in turn  operates Midas Hotel and Misibis Bay Resort in Albay province.
ICCP is now in talks with several banks, which include Security Bank Corp., Development Bank of the Philippines, Land Bank of the Philippines, China Banking Corp., Philippine Veterans Bank, Philippine Bank of Communications and BDO Unibank Inc. The loan represent about 70 percent of the total cost of the four projects.
“We gave ICCP the mandate to be our lead arranger for the P4-b syndicated term loan facility for the four projects,” Co said.
The four proposed hydro projects are the 15-megawatt Main Aklan, 9.4-MW Villasiga 2 (Antique), 6-MW Pinacanauan (Cagayan) and 1.5-MW Bansud (Oriental Mindoro).
The Legazpi-based businessman, meanwhile, said the company was preparing the listing of its shares at the Philippine Stock Exchange to comply with the law.
The Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 requires generation companies and distribution utilities to sell not less than 15 percent of their common shares of stocks.
“For the IPO, it might be Suweco or holding company ECO Utility Energy Ventures Co. Power,” Co said.
Suweco is developing nearly 300 MW of power projects around the country, including hydro, 179.49 MW; wind, 52 MW; and solar, 7 MW.
“We have wind and solar but we prioritize hydro. In due time we can expand more on other renewable projects because hydro has a larger impact on the community,” Suweco president Jose Silvestre Natividad said.
Suweco’s most advanced power projects includes a capacity of about 50 MW covering nine hydro projects in the provinces of Antique and Aklan that will help alleviate power shortage in the Panay Island.
These are the 8-MW Bugasong, Antique or Villasiga 1; and 9.4-MW (Villasiga 2); 15-MW Libacao, Aklan (Main Aklan); 2.4-MW (Upper Aklan West Tributary); 3-MW (Lower East Aklan Tributary); 2.4-MW (Middle West Tributary); and the 2-MW Laua-an Antique.
Natividad said the hydro projects were at different stages of development, with Bugasong, the most advance in development.
He said  the Villasiga 1 project costing P1.4 billion was about 85 percent complete and would start generating power by June this year with a potential annual energy generation of 31,479,070 kilowatthours.
The hydropower project, a run-of-river renewable energy type of power development  in Barangay Igsoro, Bugasong, Antique, will optimize the potential use of the main Paliuan River to generate power.   source

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