Japanese JV firm eyeing new projects

Updated June 9, 2018, 10:19 PM By Myrna M. Velasco

https://business.mb.com.ph/2018/06/09/japanese-jv-firm-eyeing-new-projects/

The joint venture of Japanese firms Marubeni Corporation and JERA Co. Inc., via their local subsidiary TeaM Energy Philippines, is on a hunt for power expansion ventures, primarily in the renewable energy (RE) sector as well as in the installation of new baseload power projects.

“Renewable energy is one that we will be looking to expand,” TeaM Energy President and CEO John V. Alcordo has told reporters, with that target primarily anchored on the prevailing presence of one parent firm (Marubeni) in the San Roque hydropower project in Pangasinan.

Other than prospective RE developments, he noted the others they have been setting their sights on are greenfield baseload projects, and may also plunge into the sphere of joint ventures (JV) or acquisitions.

“It can vary in size, anywhere from 100 megawatts to 300MW. We’re open to renewables, and of course baseload – let’s see how the energy sector would shape over the next few years,” Alcordo said
TeaM Energy currently has 2,400MW of attributable capacity on its portfolio – and that is a level it wants to maintain even upon the lapse of its build-operate-transfer (BOT) contracts with government on the 1,200-megawatt Sual and 735-MW Pagbilao coal-fired power facilities.

“If we don’t do anything in seven years — from 2,400MW; we will go down to 400MW. Obviously, we want to maintain that level as much as possible,” he stressed.

The 400MW capacity of the company, starting year 2026, will just account for the 200MW excess capacity of the Sual plant and its 200MW share in the 420MW Pagbilao-3 expansion project, its joint venture with the Aboitiz group.

Alcordo thus emphasized that capacity shoring up beyond that period will be “a big challenge for me – so it would be acquisitions, joint ventures, greenfield opportunities – we’ll be on the lookout for those.”

The TeaM Energy top executive qualified there is nothing in their investment roadmap yet at this point, but said the opportunities they have been pursuing are geographically dispersed in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

“We would be open to Visayas and certain parts of Mindanao,” he said, expounding that the Mindanao opportunity is not a thermal power development.

The gas sector is another investment area that TeaM Energy’s other parent firm will also be exploring, since JERA is one of the biggest players in the gas industry in the Asia Pacific region and the world. “They (JERA) would be very interested if the right opportunity would come,” Alcordo indicated.