Semirara to invest up to $500M for Calaca plant

Manila Times.net

Written by Madelaine B. Miraflor  Published on 06 May 2013

The Consuji-led Semirara Mining Corp. is going to invest up to $500 million for the second expansion of another Calaca coal plant in Batangas, which is targeted to carry a combined capacity of 300 megawatts.

Isidro Consuji, Semirara Mining chief executive officer, told reporters on Monday after the firm’s annual stockholders meeting that for the second expansion of its new coal plant in Calaca, Batangas, the company will spend $400 million to $500 million. He also said that the construction for the project is set to commence in the third quarter of this year, and is expected to be completed in the span of two and a half years.

Semirara Mining, which might created a wholly owned company for the project, is looking to tap 70-percent debt as well as do rights offering to fund the project.

“Baka mag-rights offering ulit ang Semirara Mining to do the phase 2 kasi ’yung first rights offering is only for the acquisition of Calaca.

So baka mag-rights offering for second expansion. [We might do rights offering to do the phase 2 expansion because the first rights offering we did was just for the acquisition of Calaca],” Consuji said.

He also specified that the $400-million to $500-million investment is only for engineering procurement construction as well as a bit of interest unit construction, which would go as low as $50 million or 10 percent of the whole project cost.

As for the company’s regular capital spending, Semirara Mining Chief Financial Officer Junalina Tabor said that the firm is planning to spend P1 billion to P1.5 billion.

Meanwhile, Consuji mentioned that the company is looking at the possibility to do underground mining in a few years in to produce more coal.

He said that the company will have to learn from China if underground coal mining would be viable in the Philippines.

“We’re still going to China whether viable ’yung underground mining. May technology sila eh, I’m just not sure kung applicable or not here.

[They have the technology, I’m just not sure if its applicable here in the Philippines],” Consuji said.

“So in the next two to three years, we will send a study team [to China] to look at that, to extend the life of the mining. To produce more, we need to extend the life [of the mine],” he added.

For this year, Semirara Mining is targeting to produce around 7.4 million tons of coal from its open pit mine.   source