Alsons ups power investments: $1.35B

Manila Bulletin  
By Myrna M. Velasco 
Published: May 27, 2013 
Alsons Consolidated Resources, Inc. of the Alcantara group is scaling up investments in the power industry to $1.35 billion over six years with various projects already at various stages of implementation.
In an interview with reporters at the sidelines of the company’s annual stockholders meeting last Friday, Alsons chairman and president Tomas I. Alcantara noted that their power ventures will comprise of the plant that will provide electricity to the Tampakan mining facility of Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI) and the firmed up coal-fired projects in Sarangani and Zamboanga.
“For the Tampakan project, that’s 419 megawatts and that will involve $900 million. And then right now, our projects that are in the pipeline are already about $450 million… so $450 million until 2016-2017,” he stressed.
The Alsons top executive added, “if the Tampakan is ever realized, we have another $900 million. Right now, the mine itself is under technical development, they are still working on the mining side.”
For the power projects of which capacity will be fed directly to Mindanao grid, Alsons developments covered the 105-MW Sarangani phase 1 coal facility that is expected on-line by 2015; and its second phase of another 105-MW that will come on stream a year later; as well as the 105-MW Zamboanga coal-fired project which is set to reach commercial operation in 2016.
The proposed Tampakan facility will come later around 2019. It will be a dedicated plant that will serve the electricity requirements of the Tampakan mines.
“Today we are working on the technical study for the power plant. We have a framework agreement with SMI that we have exclusive rights to put together the power plant that they will require when they will become fully operational,” Alcantara stressed.
The company is similarly working on a proposed 40-MW Seguil hydropower project in Sarangani, which it targets to bring on stream around 2016-2017. This will be implemented in several phases at 16.7MW initially.
With all of these power facilities in its blueprint, the Alcantara conglomerate is well-positioned to become a major player in Mindanao with one-fourth of the grid’s supply or about 463 megawatts eventually coming from its portfolio.
Meanwhile, Alcantara noted that their power ventures contributed partly to the 11.6-percent rise in the company’s net income in the first quarter which reached P509 million from the previous year’s P456 million.
The main driver in the firm’s robust financial performance though was still its industrial estate Lima Technology Center (LTC) in Malvar, Batangas, its joint venture with Japanese firm Marubeni Corporation.
The listed firm reported a 34 percent “surge in land sales and rental income and a 16 percent increase in power and water utility sales to locators.” This triggered 18.2 percent rise in its earnings to P972 million as of end 2012 from the previous year’s P822 million.   source