Biomass to complete P667.5-million San Carlos BioPower buy-in
BIOMASS Holdings Inc. (BHI), a subsidiary of Greenergy Holdings Inc., was slated on Wednesday to pay San Carlos BioPower Inc. (SCB) about P667.53 million for a 64-percent equity stake in the latter.
The payment signals the start of the construction of an 18-megawatt (MW) biomass facility in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental.
“BHI shall release the total investment price to SCB on March 6, which amount shall be treated as deposit for future subscription to common shares of SCB from the latter’s increase of authorized capital stock,” Greenergy Corporate Secretary Martin Subido said in a disclosure to the stock exchange on Wednesday. The biomass project is set to formally begin construction on April 2.
The said project was issued a certificate of registration by the Board of Investments in December last year and was confirmed by the energy department to have met the requirements to avail of feed-in-tariff concessionary rates on February 13.
BHI is a joint venture between Greenergy Holdings Inc. and Cleantech Projektgesellschaft mbH, a global investment holding company focused on renewable energy infrastructure and is managed by the ThomasLloyd Group.
SCB’s 18-MW biomass facility is a greenfield, stand-alone power project that can supply baseload power to the local grid. The biomass facility will use sugarcane residues and energy crops from dedicated plantations as feedstock.
“The facility will provide electricity to an area experiencing short supply of and increasing demand for power. It will also provide an additional source of income to the local farming community. San Carlos BioPower is committed to providing sustainable power from renewable sources of energy and to maintaining the environmental integrity of the surrounding area upon its completion in late 2013,” SCB said.
Lenie Lectura - BusinessMirror
Comments
Pros:Firstly, this project would give a positive impact with the progress of San Carlos. This may encourage the previous plans of putting up ship building here in San Carlos which can employ a large amount of manpower. With employment comes along lots of benefits to San Carlos though not all employees will be coming from our city, but still it impacts our economy through house rentals, food purchases, transportation and etc. Cons:This project is planned by no other than SJRI, BRI, SCB and whatever rebranding this company have, this are the same guys who planned and manage San Carlos Bioenergy for quite sometime which almost bankrupt a couple of years back. So we have some uncertainty with the management team of this company.I hope this team would look into the future not only with the temporary inflow of money through projects and how they can attached existing business to secure more income with done deals for projects and utilities then inturn put the project out of balance. Let us learn from what the past had thought us. VAMOS San Carlos .