Semirara sees 62% higher coal shipments

Semirara Mining Corp., the coal unit of the Consunji family’s DMCI Holdings Corp., expects to ship a total of 3.4 million metric tons this year, 62 percent higher than the previous year’s level.

Semirara vice-president James Garcia said the company has shipped coal to China and India, and also to STEAG State Power which has already placed a follow-up order after a trial shipment last October for its new 210-megawatt coal thermal power plant in Mindanao.

The new export business has been a result of the company’s efforts to continually increase sales to a more varied portfolio of clients.

Semirara has been selling mainly to local coal-fired power plants, cement plants and boilers for steam utilization.

“We expect to further expand our present client base especially with global coal demand being greater than supply, and oil prices posting new records and likely to go higher,” Garcia said.

At current prices, coal is approximately 15 percent the cost of bunker fuel oil, or 85 percent cheaper.

Garcia said the company has acquired a new set of equipment to boost its capacity. “We are prepared and ready to meet an expected rise in demand for our coal.”

DMCI Holdings, which owns 58 percent of Semirara, is in the advanced stages of putting up new thermal coal power plants for generation of electricity.

“The overall strategy is to generate the demand for our coal, whether from third party buyers or from within the group,” Garcia said.

Semirara reported a slight drop in net income to P565.04 million in the first nine months of the year from P571.21 million even as its revenues rose 25 percent to P4.66 billion.

Local deliveries posted a 30 percent increase from 1.61 million metric tons to 2.167 million metric tons in the current comparable period. Power plants took up most of local volumes, recording 1.4 million metric tons which accounted for 67 percent of total local sales, and represented a 23 percent improvement in power plant sales as of the year earlier level.

Cement companies recorded an even higher growth of 32 percent with sales volume of 589,028 metric tons compared with the year-ago figure.

Sales to other industrial plants likewise recorded an impressive 442 percent growth from 19,779 metric tons last year to 107,135 metric tons.