Aboitiz Power Corp. (APC) plans to tap the International Finance Corp., the private sector arm of the World Bank group, to finance its acquisition of 175-megawatt (MW) Ambuklao-Binga hydropower complex.
APC senior vice president Luis Miguel Aboitiz, in an interview with reporters over the weekend, said financing schemes for the $325 million acquisition cost of Ambuklao-Binga power plants will be finalized by early next year.
“We expect to come up with the financing plan by January 2008. We are looking at IFC as one of our potential lenders,” he said.
Aboitiz admitted that the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) still has a number of deliverables like settlement of land titles before the financial closure of the sale.
“We will be working together with PSALM to resolve these issues as soon as possible so we can go ahead with the closure of our sale agreement,” he said.
Under the agreement, PSALM will have 540 days to settle its deliverables before the Aboitiz group pays 30 percent of its bid.
Based on the initial plan, SN Aboitiz Power Hydro Inc. (SNAP Hydro), the group led by the Aboitiz family that won the bid for the Ambuklao-Binga hydropower plant complex will expand capacity of Binga plant by adding more new turbines to run the plant efficiently.
On the Ambuklao plant, he said they have to fix the plant to make it run at 65 MW. The plant is currently on the shutdown mode due to some technical problems.
APC has been acquiring hydropower plants in line with its commitment to promote cleaner fuel for the power sector.
With the recent acquisition, the gross capacity of its hydro facilities would reach to over 600 MW.
With the sale, PSALM is able to sell 42.7 percent or 1,850.4 MW of the National Power Corp.’s generating assets in Luzon and Mindanao with a total proceeds of $2.709 billion. This is just 7.3 percent short of the 50 percent privatization target of PSALM for end-2007.
For the remainder of the year, PSALM is also set to auction off 339 MW Palinpinon geothermal power plant/Panay diesel on Dec. 19 this year.
SNAP Hydro is a Philippine corporation whose 60 percent outstanding capital stock is owned by Manila-Oslo Renewable Enterprise Inc. The rest, or 40 percent, is owned by SN Power Holding Singapore Pte. Ltd. The corporation was incorporated on March 12, 2007.