Aboitiz Power secures financing for 68MW Hedcor hydro power plant

MANILA--Aboitiz Power Corporation will secure the financing for the 68 Megawatt (MW) Hedcor Bukidnon Inc. hydro power plant and the 510 MW Therma Visayas Inc (TVI) coal fired power plant by the third quarter (Q3) of 2015.

“We are currently in the advanced stages of closing several finance packages for our newest greenfield power plant projects, including our 510 MW baseload plant in Toledo City, Cebu and our 68 MW Manolo Fortrich runof-river hydropower plants in Bukidnon,” said Aboitiz Equity Ventures senior vice president and chief financial officer Stephen Paradies during the annual stockholders’ meeting held Monday at the Intercontinental Hotel in Makati City.

Aboitiz Power chief financing officer Manuel Lozano said the Manolo Fortrich hydro power plant will cost P9 to P10 billion, while the TVI power plant will amount to P34 billion.

Paradies said the company expects to close the financing deal by the third quarter of 2015, having secured lead arrangers already, namely Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) Capital Corporation or the Hedcor power project and First Metro Investment Corporation (FMIC) for TVI.

TVI had started construction last month, with an operations target of 2018.

Meanwhile, the Hedcor project will start construction within 2015, but aims to start operations by the end of 2017.