Semirara Mining unit taps P11.5B loan

MANILA, Philippines—Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Semirara Mining Corp., has secured an P11.5-billion syndicated term loan to finance its planned 300-megawatt coal facility in Batangas.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Semirara said Southwest Luzon signed and executed last Friday the omnibus loan and security agreement with Banco de Oro Unibank, Bank of the Philippine Islands and China Banking Corp. BDO Capital and Investments Corp. was the lead arranger for the term loan.

According to Semirara, the loan will be used by Southwest Luzon to “partially finance the design, engineering, procurement, construction and operation of Southwest Luzon’s coal-fired thermal power plant to be located in Calaca, Batangas.”

The new coal facility will be adjacent to the existing 600-MW Batangas coal-fired thermal power plant, which is owned and operated by SEM Calaca Power Corp., also a wholly owned subsidiary of Semirara Mining.

The proposed 300-MW coal facility (Phase 1) of Southwest Luzon is part of a bigger project to have a new 1,200-MW coal-fired power plant complex in Batangas.

Should this push through, Semirara will be able to triple the capacity of its existing 600-MW Batangas coal facility at the site to 1,800 MW, Semirara Mining chief finance officer Nestor Dadivas earlier said.

Initially, it was reported that Semirara only wanted to double the capacity of the Calaca coal plant to 1,200 MW.

But Dadivas said the site could actually accommodate up to 1,800 MW. The first 600 MW is targeted to be completed in five years.

“We’re going by phases because we don’t want our project to be in big chunks. It will be difficult to market [in one shot something as big as] 600 MW. It’s better to market the small capacities of 150 MW or 300 MW,” Dadivas had said.

The proposed facilities would solely use coal from the Semirara coal mines, he said.

“The advantage of the [proposed] plants is that because of the clean coal technology, these can use lower-grade coal,” Dadivas pointed out.

Lower grade coal is also cheaper than regular grade coal and only Semirara would be able to enjoy this added benefit, Dadivas said.

The 300-MW power facility is expected to cost $425 million, or roughly P18.3 billion.