First Gen ratchets up capex to $1.27B to beef up capacity

MANILA, Philippines — Lopez-led First Gen Corp. set aside $1.27 billion or about P74.4 billion for capital expenditure (capex) this year, mainly to advance its renewable energy goal and complete its liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project in Batangas.

The 2024 budget is higher by 15.5 percent from the $ 1.1 billion capex set last year.

On the sidelines of the listed firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting held Friday, First Gen CFO Emmanuel Antonio Singson said that of this year’s spending, $670 million would go to subsidiary Energy Development Corp. (EDC) to beef up its renewable energy portfolio.

READ: First Gen closer to building RE projects near dams

The remainder, $600 million, is earmarked for finishing the development of its LNG facility.

First Gen aims to rack up 13,000 megawatts (MW) of total capacity by 2030, which entails developing an additional 9,500 MW of power generation capacity in natural gas and renewable energy.

Of the additional capacity, around 7,500 MW will come from new renewable projects including hydro, solar, and wind.

Through EDC, First Gen lined up seven new power plants with an aggregate capacity of 83 MW, slated for completion by the end of this year.

Mostly geothermal

Upon completion, First Gen’s total installed renewable capacity will reach 1,705 MW by the end of this year.

Four of these are geothermal power plants with a total capacity of 82.6 MW. The other three are battery energy storage system (BESS) projects with a 40-megawatt-hours combined capacity.

READ: First Gen readies floating LNG facility

First Gen president and COO Francis Giles Puno said an investment of P29.3 billion would be needed to build the power facilities in the pipeline—P24 billion for geothermal facilities and P5.3 billion for BESS projects.

According to the company, most of the funding for the projects is coming from the P60-billion capex of EDC last year.

The firm’s P6.7-billion, 29-MW Palayan geothermal plant is also operating inside EDC’s Bacon-Manito (BacMan) geothermal facility in the Bicol region.

The 5.6-MW geothermal power plant in Bago City in Negros Occidental province, with a project cost of P2.9-billion, is scheduled to begin operation in the third quarter.

Batteries, too

Two other geothermal projects, the P6.6-billion Tanawon power plant also inside the BacMan facility and the P7.8-billion P7.8-billion in EDC’s existing plants in Leyte province, will commence operations by the fourth quarter.

“We continue to invest. Half of the P60 billion capex goes to drilling, the other half goes to new builds. Geothermal is complicated, you have to build new wells and then work over existing wells,” Puno said.

The three BESS projects will jump-start operations by the end of 2024. These are the P2.2-billion BacMan BESS in Bicol, the P1.5-billion Tongonan BESS in Leyte, and the P1.6-billion Negros BESS.

“We hope that adding these modest capacities into the grid from clean energy sources will help ease our country’s need for more power supply without creating stress to the environment,” Puno said.

Through unit FGEN LNG Corp., the firm is undertaking the LNG terminal to accelerate the ability to introduce LNG to the country and meet the natural gas requirements of existing and future gas-fired power plants and its affiliates.