Published
By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat
Filipino-owned Ormin
Power Corp. said the second 10-MW phase of the 30-mw hydro power project in
Mindoro will cost P1.8 billion only, significantly lower than the P2.4-billion
first phase.
The company has just
inaugurated the first phase of the Inabasan Hydropower Project in Mindoro.
According to Ormin
Power Vice President Jose Ocampo Ilagan explained that the cost of the second
phase would be dramatically lower than the first phase as it would be utilizing
the same water diversion weir that has been created for the 1st phase. The next
phase will also share in the infrastructure of the first as well as common
facilities, pipe laying, and access roads.
“The common facilities
and various access already created for phase 1 provides for a certain degree of
economies of scale for the succeeding phase, and is expected to bring down by
30% the per MW cost of constructing for the new phase,” said Ilagan.
Ilagan said the company
intends to pursue the same 60-40 debt equity project finance arrangement as the
first phase.
“Shareholders had
signified that they are ready to take on the equity requirements of the next
phase. But the reality for renewable energy projects is its high capex nature
which may put pressure on the ability of its shareholders to extend the
required resources especially in the immediate term,” Ocampo said.
The success though of
the first phase, which was just inaugurated recently, plus the increasing
novelty of renewable energy, has raised the interest of various investors,
local and foreign alike.
Ormin has been
approached by several investors from the US, Japan and China, with varying
interest on modes of participation, he said.
“Ormin Power is open to
pursue beneficial arrangement with parties interested to partake in the success
of the Inabasan Hydropower Project,” he said.
The first phase was a
long-term debt financing provided primarily by the Development Bank of the
Philippines and other commercial banks like Metrobank, RCBC and Philippine
Business Bank, for the short-term financing needs.
The 40 percent equity
is controlled by subsidiaries created under the listed Jolliville Holdings
Corporation (JOH), alongside minority partners.
The completion of the
10-megawatt Inabasan Hydro-Electric Power Plant (IHPP) is in response to the
government’s, particularly the Department of Energy, call to “develop the
country’s hydro-power resources essential to meeting energy demand over the
next 10 years.”
The IHPP is owned and
operated by Ormin Power, Inc. (OPI), an independent power provider (IPP) and
the power-generation subsidiary of Jolliville Holdings Corporation, chaired by
Jolly L. Ting.
“The completion of the
Inabasan Hydro-electric power plant is a realization of the vision of
harnessing renewable energy to provide clean, sustainable and affordable energy
to Oriental Mindoro to support the growth and development of the province,”
Ting explained.
Supposed to be
completed in 2016 two years after it started in 2014, the power project
suffered a three-year delay because of four big typhoons, Nona, Nina, Urduja
and Usman, that battered the island in those years.
The project undertook
rehabilitation and major repair works because of the damage wrought by the
typhoons.
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