First Gen doubles capex budget after Casecnan hydro win

MANILA  -The Lopez family’s power company, First Gen Corp., will be doubling its earmarked capital expenditure this year to $1.1 billion to accelerate its clean energy expansion plans—including a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal—and after emerging as the winning bidder for the 165-megawatt (MW) Casecnan hydroelectric power plant.

First Gen chief financial officer Emmanuel Singson said $403 million of this would be spent for the projects of Energy Development Corp., its 100-percent owned renewable energy arm.

Among the company’s medium-term goals is to expand its clean energy portfolio to 13 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 by developing renewable technologies.

This includes the construction of 1 GW of wind power plants on existing onshore wind concessions and 3 GW on offshore wind concessions in the Guimaras-Iloilo-Negros Occidental area.

To achieve this, the company will need to shell out a total of $20 billion in the next seven years through internally generated funds and debt, Singson said.

First Gen, the energy arm of conglomerate First Philippine Holdings Corp., is also eyeing the development of geothermal and wind farm projects in its Burgos site, president and chief operating officer Giles Puno said in their annual stockholders’ meeting on Wednesday.

“The Department of Energy’s Philippine Energy Plan illustrates a massive growth in natural gas and renewable capacity in the near future. As a response to this need, we are diligently working toward significantly growing our portfolio to 13 GW by 2030, aiming for a majority of this capacity to be powered by renewables,” Puno said, it LNG plant will also be activated soon.

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