Power plant in Sarangani boosts Alsons net income

BY LENIE LECTURA – MARCH 24, 2022
from Business Mirror

Alsons Consolidated Resources Inc. (ACR), the publicly-listed company of the Alcantara Group, reported a 24-percent jump in its net income to P405 million last year from P325 million in 2020.

ACR’s 210 megawatt (MW) Sarangani Energy Corp.’s (SEC) baseload power plant continued to be the key revenue and income driver for the company.  ACR’s revenues grew by 6 percent last year to P10.05 billion from P9.47 billion in the prior year. SEC currently provides power to key areas in Mindanao including Sarangani Province, General Santos, Cagayan de Oro, and Iligan.

ACR, which is Mindanao’s first private-sector power generator, has a portfolio of four power facilities with an aggregate capacity of 468 megawatts (MW) serving over 8 million people in 14 cities and 11 provinces in the country’s second largest island.

In the long-term, ACR is set to focus on renewables with the company’s first renewable energy facility–a P4.5-billion 14.5 MW hydroelectric power plant currently under construction at the Siguil River basin in Sarangani Province.The Siguil Hydro Power plant will be the first of eight hydropower facilities that ACR plans to develop.

The company recently received an issuer credit rating upgrade from the Philippine Rating Services Corp. (PhilRatings) to PRS Aa minus (corp.) from PRS A plus (corp).  The rating upgrade was made in relation to ACR’s issuance of up to P3 billion in commercial papers (CPs).

Among the factors cited by PhilRatings for the upgrade were:  ACR’s “planned expansion projects which will further diversify its generation mix”; “the Company’s ability to establish joint ventures with strong partners for particular projects”; and ACR’s “strong profitability despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.”

ACR listed last year its first tranche of CPs worth P1.4 billion on the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. while the second tranche worth P600 million was listed in November last year. Proceeds are meant to mainly pay off the company’s short-term obligations.