Alsons to issue P3.0-B worth of commercial papers

Published November 21, 2020, 5:30 AM by Myrna M. Velasco
https://mb.com.ph/2020/11/21/alsons-to-issue-p3-0-b-worth-of-commercial-papers/

Alcantara-led Alsons Consolidated Resources Inc. has secured the approval of its board for the targeted issuance of P3.0 billion worth of commercial papers (CPs) as part of its forward fund-raising activity.

The company said the CPs are “to be issued in one or more tranches,” within the three-year validity period as approved by the regulators.

The Alcantara firm emphasized that the initial tranche is targeted at P2.0 billion and this is scheduled by March next year.

The company is currently advancing several power projects that could then beef up its portfolio both in thermal as well as in renewable energy (RE) space.

This year, the project already at construction phase is its P4.5 billion Siguil run-of-river hydropower facility sited in Sarangani province that will yield 14.5-megawatt capacity; while the P16 billion San Ramon coal-fired power venture of 105MW capacity in Zamboanga City is also targeted to kick off construction soon.

ACR noted its Siguil project “is ongoing and targeting completion in 2022,” and this will be the group’s initial plunge into renewable energy (RE) development.

For the San Ramon thermal power project, the Alcantara firm emphasized that construction will begin next year; and this is expected to reach commercial operations in 2024.

The facility will contemplatively solve the lingering dilemma of Zamboanga City’s power supply interruptions, because the area will already have source of baseload electricity supply that won’t be hurdled by transmission bottlenecks.

Next on the company’s project blueprints would be array of run-of-river hydropower projects in Visayas and Mindanao that will then shore up the company’s RE platform.

Despite the economic setbacks instigated by the Covid-19 pandemic, ACR has been among the players in the power industry that was able to buck the odds and came out financially strong this year, based on its higher income reported as of end-third quarter of this year.

Company officials previously indicated that Mindanao fortuitously recovered faster when power grids had been plagued with demand slump, especially during the lockdown periods of March to May because of the health crisis.
The company currently has 468 megawatts of power capacity, and that scale of portfolio makes it one of the biggest power producers in Mindanao grid. Its major investment to-date is the US$570 million Sarangani coal-fired power project that added up 210MW capacity in the country’s southernmost power grid.