SMC beefs up power generation portfolio

CONGLOMERATE San Miguel Corp.’s power generation arm, SMC Global Power Holdings Corp., is lining up two new power plant investments and expanding two existing facilities.

“We will build in Cebu and in Panay,” SMC Global Power chair Ramon S. Ang told reporters. “I hope it would be 300 megawatts (MW) each.”

“I think we can put up the (Panay) plant in two and a half to three years,” Ang said.

An ongoing project in Malita, Davao Occidental is a 300-MW facility that can be expanded by another 300 MW, Ang said.

“Greenfield projects take two to three years (to complete), but the one in Malita could take only 18 months,” Ang said.

Asked how much the investments these projects would entail, Ang said coal projects average about $2 million per megawatt.

Another expansion would be in Limay, Bataan. The first of the two phases of the Limay power project will involve two generating units with capacity of 150 MW each. The two units are targeted to go on stream next year. The second phase will involve another 300 MW and it will be online by 2017.

The project design cast the Limay facility to be expandable by up to 900MW. After the initial phases, the plan is to reach 900MW until year 2018.

The company’s long-term plan is to boost capacity by an additional 3,000 MW.

SMC Global Power has shelved a planned initial public offer and will instead raise $700 million from the debt market for expansion, senior company officials said Wednesday.

The country’s biggest power producer, SMC Global Power accounts for about a fifth of the Philippines’ total supply, is seeking funding for two new power facilities with a combined generation capacity of 600 megawatts.