Business Mirror
Published on Sunday, 03 March 2013 19:06 Written by Lenie Lectura / Reporter
LOPEZ-LED Energy Development Corp. (EDC) expects steady growth this year despite the shutdown of the Bacon-Manito (BacMan) facility and the ill-fated incident that occurred at the Leyte facility on Friday.
“We know that there’s going to be a steady growth until 2016 and 2017,” said EDC Chief Financial Officer Nestor Vasay. “Our expected revenues is P30 billion this year from P26 billion in 2012. We have new contracts in Green Core and, of course, we’re expecting more contributions from BacMan.”
Unit 2 of BacMan was shut down after a turbine blade was sheared off. As a precaution, EDC decided to suspend the operation of BacMan 1 for inspection.
Straddling the towns of Bacon in Sorsogon and Manito in Albay, the BacMan geothermal power plants consist of: BacMan I with two 55-megawatt (MW) facilities and BacMan II with two 20-MW units.
EDC also reported last week that five died after a landslide occurred at EDC’s geothermal power facility in Leyte.
Thirty-six workers have been accounted for at the Upper Mahiao project with 21 treated at EDC’s clinic and 11 others taken to a nearby hospital. EDC said the landslide came after two weeks of intermittent rains.
“Two weeks of intermittent rain triggered a landslide in EDC’s Pad 403 of its Upper Mahiao geothermal project in Leyte…We are coordinating with the families of those affected. A joint EDC-local government unit emergency response team is continuing the rescue of the missing workers,” it said.
Despite the setbacks, EDC is earmarking a large capital expenditure (capex) budget this year to fund its other projects.
“Our capex for this year is P32 billion, the bulk of which will be spent on the Burgos project which is about close to P11.2 billion,” added Vasay. The rest will be spread out among EDC’s projects, particularly for drilling of wells. EDC’s capex this year is higher than last year’s P22 billion.
On Friday the company signed a deal with wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems, signaling the start of the Burgos wind project in Ilocos Norte.
EDC is putting up a $300-million 87-MW wind-power facility in the area. When completed in 2014, the Burgos wind-farm project will be the largest in the Philippines.
The project comprises of three work packages—the construction of the wind farm; layout of a transmission line connecting the farm to the Laoag substation of that of the National Grid Corp.; and creation of a substation adjacent to the farm and interconnected to the Laoag substation.
Vestas will be supplying 29 V90 3-MW turbines, which are bigger and generates more power than the facility in Bangui, Ilocos Norte.
The Burgos wind project is EDC’s entry into the wind-power sector, complementing its geothermal, hydro and natural gas facilities.
Vasay said the firm is planning to issue bonds and borrow from banks to finance the project.
Around $75 million to $100 million (about P5 billion to P7 billion) will be in form of peso bonds while another $100 million will be borrowed from three banks. The remainder will be sourced internally generated funds.
“We will issue bonds plus a combination of bank loans from two or three banks. We will try to close it by the end of the month,” said Vasay.
Once operational, the wind project is expected to generate approximately 233 gigawatt hours annually and power over a million households. It will augment the Luzon grid’s dependable capacity which needs an additional 4,200 MW in the next 10 years due to the projected 4.5-percent annual increase in electricity demand.
Based on data from the Energy Regulatory Commission, out of the 12,069-MW total installed capacity from Luzon, 5,923 MW or 49.07 percent run on imported fuels, wherein 4,172 MW and 1,751 MW are coal and oil fired plants, respectively. source
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