Alsons sees flat profit growth

Manila, Philippines -  Mindanao-based energy firm Alsons Consolidated Resources Inc. (ACR) said it expects that growth in its profit at P456 million this year due to the absence of one-time gains from a year ago.

ACR chief finance officer Luis R. Ymson Jr. said profit will be flat this year as there will be no more non-recurring gains like the P230-million insurance claims booked last year, Ymson said.

However, revenues are poised to climb 62 percent to P4.75 billion from P2.94 billion last year.

“We forecast to operate the Iligan diesel plant. We hope to get this ready by the end of 2012,” Ymson said.

Tomas Alcantara, chairman and president of ACR, said the company is waiting for the Iligan City government to pass a resolution for the sale of the power plant.

The 100-megawatt (MW) plant, which was last operated in 2010, was sold to ACR subsidiary Conal Holdings Corp. after it was acquired by the local government due to a tax delinquency.

However, the power plant also needs clearance from the Commission on Audit before it resumes operation.

For this year, ACR has allotted as much as P600 million for capital spending ahead of an expected hike in electricity demand.

Capital for general corporate spending is at P150 million while the acquisition and rehabilitation of the Iligan power plant will require P450 million, Alcantara said.

ACR’s energy and power businesses are held by Conal Holdings, Mapalad Power Corp., Sarangani Energy Corp., Alsing Power Holdings, Inc., Alsons Power Holdings Corp., Northern Mindanao Power Corp., and Alto Power Management Corp.

New projects will include the 200-MW coal-fired power plant in Sarangani and the 100-MW coal-fired plant in Zamboanga. Both projects will be online in 2015.

The Mindanao grid, which needs an average of 1,300 MW daily, lacked an average of 50 MW to 300 MW, resulting in two to four hours of rotating brownouts from January to April, data from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines showed.

Ymson said the new ventures will increase ACR’s attributable generating capacity to 383 MW in 2016 from just 58 MW in 2011.

“We have our hands full already with 300 MW of power plants... at least for the next three years we will not be able to digest new projects,” Alcantara said.

ACR posted a net profit of P91.5 million in the first quarter this year, down 44.7 percent from P165.5 million a year earlier. Its revenues rose by seven percent to P727.5 million, mainly driven by the strong performance of its power generation subsidiaries.