November 18, 2019 | 12:06 am By Victor V. Saulon Sub-Editor
A MALAYSIAN company has pledged to
invest up to $2 billion to put up 12 waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities in the
Philippines in partnership with Filipino company Integrated Green Technology,
Inc. (IGT) and a French technology provider.
Michael C. Jimenez, chief executive
officer and president of IGT, identified the Malaysian firm as PhilSar
Renewable Energy Sdn Bhd. and the French group as CNIM Martin Pte Ltd. (CMPL),
his partner in at least three WTE projects in the Philippines that have forged
contracts with local government units in Pangasinan and Cebu.
“We’re excited about this,” he said
in an interview after a conference on Friday to announce that company’s three
WTE projects, two of which are in Cebu and one in Pangasinan.
The initial projects will cost about
$230 million and will be funded by Allied Project Services Ltd. of London. The
WTE projects earn from the fees collected from local government units, which
have difficulty managing their waste disposal.
Mr. Jimenez said the projects in
Cebu will be on Mactan island and on the main island itself, while another one
in Cebu City is being finalized. Another project is also in the pipeline in
Pangasinan.
Emely P. Ricafranca, chief finance
officer of PhilSar, said the partners will form a local company for the 12
projects, which are targeted for completion in about five years.
“[PhilSar] is investing $2 billion
to fund the said projects,” she said on Friday.
“We’re going to enter into a
memorandum of agreement and right after [that], we’re going to sit down with
the foreign EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractors, then
after that we’re going to enter into a joint venture,” she said in an
interview.
She said the funds will be invested
in 12 different cities in the Philippines for the construction of WTE
facilities. She described PhilSar as owned by Filipinos and Malaysian-Chinese.
“We will be entrusting that to IGT,”
she said when asked about the capacity of each facility. She estimated the
power output of the 12 projects at 480 megawatts.
She said the joint venture partners
will be participating in the ongoing projects of IGT in Cebu and Pangasinan,
while a fourth one in Bulacan is set to follow after the acquisition of a
property in San Jose Del Monte. Baguio is also a possible location for a WTE
facility, she said.
“It depends on the trash, it depends
on the hauling, it depends on the municipality waste kung gaano kadami,”
she said. “Kung saan pinakamarami, doon pupunta.”
Asked about the timeline for
completing the $2-billion WTE projects, she said: “I think about five, six
[years].”
Denis Bauer, director and chief
executive officer of CMPL, said what differentiates the French technology
provider from other builders of WTE facilities is its paced approach in
constructing its plants.
“Our approach is straightforward
incineration,” he said. “With us, we take the waste, almost everything which
has come, we can burn it.”
He said the business plan is more
“compact” and requires a smaller loan than projects that include other segments
such as waste recycling.
“So it’s much more simple. What we
have decided with IGT is ‘let’s go first with waste-to-energy,’” he said,
adding that the project will gain acceptance by showing that it works and is
not polluting the environment.
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