Semirara Mining inks power deal with Luzon firm
By Jordeene B. Lagare – November 28, 2018
from The Manila Times
A subsidiary of Semirara Mining and Power Corp. (SMPC) has bagged a contract to supply electricity to a steel manufacturing company in Luzon.
In a disclosure on Tuesday, the listed energy company said its retail power arm Sem-Calaca RES Corp. (SCRC) signed the contract with the firm — whose name it did not reveal — on supplying the latter with 4 megawatts (MW) of electricity for 15 months starting in September.
The contract comes as Semirara Mining President and Chief Operating Officer Victor Consunji said the energy sector might face tough times ahead, but noted that this might offer a silver lining for the firm.
“We expect a challenging 2019 for the local power industry because of increasing power supply in the market and the growing competition for power contracts,” he said.
“With the increasing contestable customers switching to retail suppliers, the RES (retail electricity supplier) market could be a bright spot for SMPC,” the official added.
An RES is any person or entity authorized to sell, broker, market or aggregate electricity to the contestable market or those customers who can choose their power supplier.
Effective January, the threshold for the 12-month average peak demand to qualify to become a contestable customer was lowered from 1 MW to 750 kilowatts (kW).
“We are in talks with a number of contestable clients for an aggregate volume of 150 MW. The negotiations are in various stages of negotiation,” Consunji said.
SCRC offers contestable power consumers affordable electricity prices by securing sufficient supply from affiliate power plants SEM-Calaca Power Corp. and Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp., other independent power generators, or the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.
Semirara Mining is a unit of DMCI Holdings Inc. that is engaged in exploring, developing, and mining coal resources on Semirara Island in Antique province. The integrated energy company owns and mines its own fuel source, enabling it to generate affordable baseload power for the Luzon and Visayas grids.
Semirara Mining shares lost 85 centavos or 3.16 percent to end at P26.05 each on Tuesday.
