Ayala offering Kauswagan plant to SMC
By Myrna M. Velasco – October 20, 2018, 10:00 PM
from Manila Bulletin
The energy investment arm of the Ayala group has reportedly offered its 540-megawatt Kauswagan coal-fired power plant for prospective equity sale to SMC Global Power Holdings Corporation of the San Miguel group.
San Miguel Corporation President Ramon S. Ang indicated to the media that “they (Ayala group) have an offer,” but he did not quality the specific details of any ongoing discussions between the parties relating to this prospective deal.
The Kauswagan and the South Luzon Thermal Energy Corporation (SLTEC) coal-fired power assets of the Ayala group had been excluded in the recent shares sell-down that the company had done on its thermal power portfolio.
It was the Aboitiz group that had bought into the Bataan coal-fired facilities of AC Energy of the Ayala conglomerate for a transaction worth US$579.2 million.
There had been no direct pronouncements from AC Energy if it will be unloading shareholdings from its SLTEC and Kauswagan plants, but talks are rife in the industry that they are still on the lookout for buyers.
The Kauswagan plant in particular, which has four generating units of 135-megawatt capacity each, is targeted reaching commercial operations next year.
Ayala has announced preference on overseas expansion and shall be anchored on an investment platform generally focused on renewable energy installations.
The company has already disclosed several solar farm developments in Vietnam; as well as wind power development that it has been lining up on that market’s race for feed-in-tariff (FIT) incentives.
Another offshore market on AC Energy’s blueprint is Indonesia – with expansion that could entail project developments both on the renewable energy (RE) space as well as thermal power installations; and still another market for its RE ventures would be Australia.
Onward to its 2025 vision, the Ayala firm casts 5,000 megawatts of capacity which it intends to be proportionally shared by the Philippines and its targeted offshore markets and shall also be an amalgamation of RE and thermal power generating portfolios.
