Alsons seeks partners for power plant

MANILA, Philippines—Alsons Consolidated Resources Inc. of the Alcantaras is planning to tap strategic equity partners that will help fund its planned $900-million (or roughly P36.9 billion) coal-fed power plant at the Tampakan copper-gold mine site in South Cotabato.

The potential equity partners for the 400-megawatt coal-fired power plant may include Sagittarius Mines Inc., the proponent of the planned development of the Tampakan, which is said to hold the world’s biggest known copper deposit, according to ACR chief financial officer Luis R. Ymson Jr.

“Alsons will conduct new fund-raising to build the 400-MW plant. The whole power station for the mine will be developed by Alsons with other possible strategic partners. Sagittarius Mines Inc. will be the sole offtaker [of the electricity to be generated by] the power plant. It can also have an equity stake in the power plant,” Ymson told the Inquirer in an interview.

Ymson said the company was looking at various financing options to raise the amount needed for the power plant, which it will build through its subsidiary, Alsons Energy Development Corp.

“We are still studying, but it will be a combination of equity capital raising and project financing, including possible entry of partners to share in equity capital needs. Since it will take three years to build the plant, we will commence fund-raising four years before the mine starts operations,” he said.

Alsons Energy earlier said that the preliminary project development undertakings for the power facility, such as project financing, were expected to commence within this year.

The company is expected to start generating electricity from the proposed coal plant by 2017. By the middle of 2019, the coal facility is expected to be fully operational, in time for the start of commercial operations at the Tampakan mine.

Based on the agreement signed by Alsons Energy and Sagittarius Mines, the power firm will develop an open-cycle gas turbine and coal-fired power station, to be located in the Kamanga Agro-Industrial Ecozone at Barangay (village) Kamanga in Maasim, Sarangani. But the facility will be owned and operated by A/S Power Development Inc. (APDI), another subsidiary of Alsons Consolidated, which was organized to manage the 400- MW plant.

Based on earlier estimates, operations at the Tampakan mine would generate enough earnings that could raise the Philippines’ gross domestic product (GDP) by one percentage point annually within the copper mine’s 25-year life span.