First Gas takes delivery of equipment

Lopez-owned First Gen Corp. disclosed yesterday that the Santa Rita natural gas-fired power plant in Batangas City would soon be operating at full capacity as the company secured new equipment for its damaged unit.

First Gas Power Corp. (FGPC), a wholly owned subsidiary of First Gen, has taken delivery of a replacement equipment imported through its plant operator Siemens Power Operations Inc. The equipment is a new 318MVA transformer for one of the four units of FGPC’s Santa Rita power plant.

“The transformer, which arrived at the port of Batangas City from Shanghai, China, will replace a similar piece of equipment that was damaged in February this year,” First Gen said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange.

The damaged transformer rendered Unit 40 of Santa Rita inoperable and resulted in the loss of a quarter—or about 250 MW—of Santa Rita’s 1,000-MW supply of electricity to the Luzon grid.

The transformer will be transported from the Batangas City port to the Santa Rita plant site, where installation and commissioning would immediately follow, First Gen said.

Once completed, Santa Rita Unit 40 will resume operations and restore approximately 250 MW back to the Luzon grid.

First Gen said in April that its Santa Rita gas power plant would be running at full capacity in the fourth quarter. This means the 1,500-MW complex comprising the Santa Rita and San Lorenzo plants would be at full capacity by then.

Santa Rita has a capacity of 1,000 MW and San Lorenzo, 500 MW. Currently, all units except Unit 40, are operating, which meant their current combined capacity was 1,250 MW.

First Gen booked $42.9 million as net income attributable to equity holders of the parent for the first quarter of 2014. This was 23.2-percent lower than the $55.9 million in the same period in 2013. The drop was attributed to higher operating expenses and lower earnings from electricity sales.