ACR on track with its 5 power expansion projects

by Lenie Lectura, December 22, 2014
from Manila Standard

ALSONS Consolidated Resources Inc. (ACR) of the Alcantara Group is on track with its fivefold expansion projects in the power sector, one of its top officials said.

ACR CFO Luis R. Ymson Jr. said the construction of the first 105-megawatt (MW) section of ACR’s 210-MW Sarangani Energy Corp. (SEC) coal-fired power plant in Maasim, Sarangani province, will be finished within 2015. 

The first section of the SEC plant is already 89-percent complete and will begin commissioning in the first half of 2015 and begin operation in October 2015. 

The SEC plant is expected to reach its full 210-MW capacity within the fourth quarter of 2016.  SEC’s 210-MW plant is one of the first new base-load power plants that will be operating by 2015 to help provide a sustainable and lasting solution to the four-year-old Mindanao power shortage.

The next steps in ACR’s fivefold expansion plan will be the commencement of the construction of the 105-MW San Ramon Power Inc. (SRPI) coal-fired power plant in Zamboanga City and a 17-MW run-of-river hydroelectric plant at the Siguil River in Maasim, Sarangani province.

The SRPI coal plant, which will service Zamboanga City and other nearby areas, is scheduled to begin operating before the end of 2018, while the Siguil hydro facility is slated to be operational by 2018.

Ymson said ACR’s fivefold expansion plan began with the company’s reacquisition and rehabilitation of the Iligan Diesel Power Plant (IDPP) in early 2013. The IDPP completed rehabilitation and began reoperating under the name of Mapalad Power Corp. (MPC) in May 2013 and now has a capacity of 103 MW. Aside from MPC’s Iligan diesel plant, ACR also currently operates the 100-MW Western Mindanao Power Corp. diesel plant in Zamboanga City and the 55-MW Southern Philippines Power Corp. diesel plant in Alabel, Sarangani.

The ACR-affiliated power facilities are expected to generate a total of 468 MW by 2016, accounting for more than 25 percent of Mindanao’s projected peak demand for that year.

Ymson said that with the completion of ACR’s fivefold expansion by 2018, the combined capacities of ACR’s power plants will be at 590 MW, almost 30 percent of the projected peak-power demand of the island.  Also, a “quantum leap” in revenues is expected for ACR as the company’s new power facilities begin to come on stream from 2015 to 2018.