SMC Global eyes P125B capital expenditures

By Alena Mae S. Flores – May 09, 2021 at 07:25 pm
from manilastandard.net

SMC Global Power Holdings Corp., the power arm of conglomerate San Miguel Corp., is looking at 2021 capital expenditure budget of almost P125 billion to finance expansion and acquisition of projects.

SMC Global Power said in a disclosure to Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. the group’s material commitments for capital expenditure projects were approved but were still being finalized as of end-March.

“These consist of construction of power plants and BESS [battery energy storage system] in line with the group’s expansion projects and acquisition of fixed assets needed for normal operations of the business. The said projects will be carried forward to the next quarter until its completion,” the company said.

Funding from the projects will come from available cash and proceeds from long-term loans, bonds and senior perpetual capital securities.

The outstanding purchase commitments of the group amounted to P30.406 billion as of end-March, while the amount authorized but not yet disbursed for capital projects was P124.184 billion.

The company said it continued to review and implement the necessary changes to operations, business processes and capital expenditure plans in view of the global and local economic factors as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The group places equal importance to maintaining and, in certain aspects, even improving its financial position and financial performance during the community quarantine period and for the rest of the year,” SMC Global Power said.

Parent company San Miguel Corp. earlier said SMC Global would spend more than $1 billion to simultaneously build 31 battery energy storage facilities nationwide with a total rated capacity of 1,000 megawatts.

“Our ongoing investment into battery energy storage facilities will greatly benefit power consumers all over the country, because this will mean that even faraway provinces or areas, can have the same stable and good quality power supply as everywhere else,” said SMC president Ramon Ang.

Ang said some battery energy storage facilities were in the advanced stages of completion. The facilities, which will make up the company’s total committed capacity of over 1000 MW, will be built in strategic sites from Luzon to Mindanao where power quality mitigations are required.

The company posted a net income of P7.77 billion in the first quarter, up by 141 percent from P3.22 billion in the same period last year.

“Without the effect of the CREATE Law, consolidated net income would still have increased by 35 percent to P4.337 billion,” SMC Global Power said.

It posted revenues of P27.365 billion in the first quarter, slightly lower than P28.3 billion it generated in the same period last year on lower demand of industrial and contestable customers.