Published December 20, 2017, 10:00
PM By Myrna M. Velasco
SN Aboitiz Power, Inc. (SNAP) is
programming US$1.75 billion worth of investments over a decade stretch on to
its targeted capacity addition of 500 megawatts until year 2027.
According to SNAP President and
Chief Executive Officer Joseph S. Yu, that capacity ramping up will be
concretized on amalgam of greenfield developments and prospective acquisitions.
“It will be a combination of
greenfields, maybe some privatization and if there are offers, we may be keen
on buying something,” he said.
Any forthcoming divestment of the
Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) would come
as an appealing prospect for the company, primarily those on the privatization
of the Casecnan, Agus and Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan (CBK) hydropower
facilities.
For the company’s preliminary
interest on the Agus hydropower complex’s privatization, Yu asserted that “it
has to be under the right conditions, SNAP is strongest when we are able to use
our ability to resurrect plants then operate them, maintain them and operate
them commercially.”
The biggest on SNAP’s blueprint of
projects would be the 390MW Alimit hydroelectric power project in Ifugao
province, that will likely command massive investments of $1.2 billion to $1.3
billion.
That will be a two-phased
development comprising of the 120MW Alimit and 20MW Olilicon; to be integrated
eventually with a 250MW pumped storage facility.
SNAP is targeting to secure Board
approval for the project middle of next year, so it can get the plant to
commercial operations phase by year 2023.
“We’re trying to accelerate the
business case development for Alimit – that means getting the permitting done
quickly and getting the techno-financial analysis done in parallel,” he said.
The company is currently in the
process of sorting out the socio-political acceptability of the project,
primarily with the indigenous peoples organizations (IPOs) as well as the host
municipalities and up to the host province of Ifugao.
“We continue to make progress on our
quest to gain socio-political acceptability, we’re still working with four
IPOs. In our consultations and in the voting, we have quite a bit of support
from them, so we are now in the process of negotiating our memorandums of
agreement for our FPICs (free, prior and informed consents) MOAs with the four
IPOs,” he narrated.
After that two-level permitting
process with the IPs and the LGUs, the next hurdle for SNAP will be its
environmental compliance certificate (ECC) to be secured from the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources.
“Once we get the three pieces,
that’s more or less – that’s the three big building blocks into getting there
(project implementation). Parallel to that, we also need to look at the
technical and financial viability of the project,” Yu stressed.
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