By Danessa Rivera (The
Philippine Star) | Updated May 16, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines – Lopez-owned
First Gen Corp. is going full blast in boosting hydropower portfolio starting
2017 as it focuses on completing its two gas-fired plants in Batangas this
year.
First Gen president and COO Francis
Giles Puno said the company remains bullish in developing hydrpowower projects
in Mindanao.
“Our hydro business development team
is scaling its expertise in hydroelectric power plant construction and
development so that we can start construction of at least one of the
32-megawatt (MW) Bubunawan, the 30-MW Puyo and the 4-.5-MW Tagoloan
run-of-river hydroelectric power projects,” Puno said.
The company has started
rehabilitating the access road in Bubunawan, which is expected to be completed
within the year, Puno said.
But for this year, the company would
focus on finishing the 97-MW Avion and the 414-MW San Gabriel gas-fired power
plants, CFO Emmanuel Singson said.
Singson said the company has
earmarked $200 million for both Avion and San Gabriel, which would achieve
commercial operations in the first half and second half, respectively.
Puno said both plants are currently
undergoing commissioning.
The Avion plant was supposed to
deliver power during the summer months of 2015 but faced delays as its turnkey
engineering, procurement, and construction contractors, with IstroenergoGroup
(IEG) and its Philippine branch company Energy Project Completion Ltd. (EPC),
failed to comply with their obligations.
The San Gabriel plant, on the other
hand, was supposed to run before the summer months of 2016.
For the hydropower plants, the “big
capex” will start in 2017 until 2019, Singson said.
No comments:
Post a Comment