Alsons attracts 5 bidders for Zamboanga coal plant

Alsons Power Group, the power business of the Alcantara family’s Alsons Consolidated Resources Inc. (ACR), has received five bids to construct its 105-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant in Talisayan, Zamboanga City.

Project manager Archimedes Donato said the bid proposals for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the 105-MW San Ramon Power Inc. (SRPI) plant are from five “reputable firms with extensive international experience” in construction and engineering.

These companies are Dongfang Electric International Corp. headquartered in Chengdu, China; Singapore-based Jurong Engineering Ltd.; Northeast No.1 Electric Power Construction Co. Ltd. (NEPC 1) – a wholly owned subsidiary of China Energy Engineering Group; Shandong Electric Power Construction Co. (SEPCO III) – a subsidiary of Power Construction Corp. of China; and Pune, India-based Thyssen-Krupp Industries India Pvt. Ltd. – a subsidiary of Germany’s Thyssenkrupp AG.

“The people of Zamboanga City and nearby areas can look forward to a state-of-the-art baseload power plant right here in the city to provide safe, reliable and affordable electricity,” Donato said.

For his part, Alsons Power vice president for project development Joseph Nocos underscored the company’s commitment to bring the project to completion.

“These bid submissions are a testimony to the keen interest the SRPI project has generated and are a vote of confidence to the future of Zamboanga City,” he said.

Considered as the biggest power project in the Zamboanga Peninsula when completed, the SRPI plant will provide baseload power to Zamboanga City and nearby areas.

It will play a crucial role in stabilizing power supply in the Zamboanga Peninsula once operational.

Construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2019 while commercial operations are set to commence in 2022.

For this year, ACR – the listed holding firm of the Alcantara family – has allocated a P9 billion capital spending this year mostly for its power business, including the pre-development aspects of SRPI.

ACR currently operates four power facilities in Mindanao generating a combined capacity of 363 MW sewing over eight million people in 13 cities and eight provinces including key urban centers such as Davao City, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos, Iligan, and Zamboanga City.

Apart from the SRPI plant, Alsons Power is also completing the 2x105-MW Sarangani Energy Corp. (SEC) plant, which will be operating in the first half of 2019. The first section started operating in early 2016.

Alsons Power is also entering the renewable energy sphere through run-of-river hydroelectric power projects with a total hydro capacity potential totaling more than 145 MW in Negros Occidental, Sarangani, Davao Oriental, Zamboanga del Norte, the two Agusan provinces and Surigao del Sur.