Taiwanese Building 2 Power Plants

By Myrna M. Velasco

January 24, 2013, 5:01pm

The long-planned 600-megawatt power capacity expansion of the energy unit of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) will finally take off from the drawing board this year following its signing of an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with Taiwanese firm Formosa Heavy Industries and local firm True North Manufacturing Services Corporation.

SMC Global Power Holdings Corporation, has noted in a statement to the media, that the two new power facilities will be located in Bataan and Davao and they will have aggregate capacity of 600 megawatts.

 “SMC Global recently signed an EPC agreement with Formosa Heavy Industries and True North Manufacturing Services Corporation for two new power plants in Bataan and Davao. Construction of both power plants, which will have a combined capacity of 600MW, will start this year,” the company has emphasized.

While no project cost was given, SMC Global is seen spending $900 million to $1.2 billion for the two greenfield developments, referencing on the rule-of-thumb development cost for coal-fired power projects of such scale.

The EPC deal was inked by True North Manufacturing Services president Domicinio B. Son, Formosa Heavy Industries assistant vice president Gu-Chuan Tsiou and SMC Global Power Holdings Corporation board directors Aurora T. Calderon and Ferdinand K. Constantino.

The 600MW projects will form part of the planned 3,000MW capacity expansion in the electricity generation sector earlier cast by San Miguel group in its energy investment blueprint.

The Davao facility, based on the grid impact study (GIS) it secured from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, will be for 300MW; while the Bataan plant will also be for 300MW initially.

The other projects eyed by the SMC group are power plants in Bulacan and Cavite for the Luzon grid; 600MW coal plant in Leyte and another 150MW in Panay; as we ll as the proposed 150-MW greenfield plant in South Cotabato.

Given the gestation period for coal-fired facility developments, the San Miguel project in Davao may clearly be a supply solution for the energy-starved Mindanao grid beyond 2015.

While its power development plans will be predominantly coal, San Miguel has previously indicated that the other focus will be on hydropower ventures.

SMC Global has always sounded off its intent to aggressively grow in the power generation segment, but the market share limitations prescribed under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) may pose some hurdles. The conglomerate is currently the biggest player in the power generation sector, as based on its equity ownership and dispatch call on capacity being wheeled to the power grid. (MMV)

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URC Builds Negros Ethanol Plant

By Melody M. Aguiba

January 25, 2013, 4:40pm

Universal Robina Corp. (URC) is taking advantage of the auspicious investment environment in biofuels as it expects to complete by 2014 a 100,000 liter per year plant in Negros Occidental.

This is the right time to put up the ethanol plant as mandated demand is hardly supplied locally with only a 133 million liters per year capacity compared to the needed 480 million liters.

URC’s ethanol plant, costing P1 billion, will have the advantage of proximity to feedstock supply in Negros Occidental where URC also runs the Universal Robina Sugar Milling Co. (Ursumco) and the Southern Negros Devt. Corp. (Sonedco) .

While the opportunities remains to be big which may convince the company to venture in ethanol in its other sugar milling sites, URC sugar general manager, said the Negros area is where the company’s biggest operations are found.

Any future plans for another ethanol plant will be carefully studied based on available sugarcane production area. The ethanol plant to be located within the Ursumco area will use molasses which is a by-product of sugar milling.

“We will be dependent on the supply of feedstock,” said Rene P. Cabati, URC sugar general manager, in an interview.

The ethanol plant is part of URC’s investment in renewable energy as it has also programmed a P2-billion biomass-fired co-generation plant with a 40-megawatt capacity. The plant within the Sonedco area is expected to be completed in 2015.

The demand for ethanol in the Philippines may expand as the government may decide to increase ethanol-gasoline mix beyond the present mandated 10 percent mix.

At the present mix, the country’s importation of 350 million liters is estimated to cost up to P11.55 billion at P32 to P33 per liter.

Republic Act 9367 (Biofuels Act) mandated blending of bioethanol with crude oil-based gasoline that started at five percent mix in 2009 and 10 percent in 2012.

At a 15 percent projected bioethanol-gasoline blend by 2015, the country needs to put up 22 more distilleries that have a capacity of 30 million liters per year.

A Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) study projected that at a 15 percent ethanol mix with gasoline, the Philippines will be able to displace 645.79 million liters of imported gasoline by 2015.

A 20 percent mix by 2020 will enable crude oil-based fuel displacement by 1.043 billion liters; by 2025, 1.202 billion liters; and 2030, 1.34 billion liters.

URC is in a position to expand in renewable energy plants in other areas outside of Negros as it also operates sugar mills in Iloilo and Cagayan Valley in Luzon.

URC also runs the Cagayan Robina Sugar Milling Co which has a 4,000 tons cane per day milling plant in Sto. Domingo, Piat, Cagayan. Its refined sugar production is at 4,300 bags (50 kilos per bag) per day. It is within the region of the bioethanol plant of Green Future Innovations in Isabela.

In Negros, Ursumco has the capacity to mill 8,000 metric tons of sugarcane per day and a 10,000-bag per day refined sugar capacity. Sonedco which has a plant in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental, has a target milling capacity of 9,000 tons of cane per day for raw sugar and 750 tons of sugar refining capacity.

The URC Passi mill is in Passi City (Brgy. Ulang Juan, San Enrique, Iloilo) and was only acquired by URC in 2007.

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