First Philippine Holdings to spend US$3 billion for power generation

Leading energy company also expects most of its growth to come from energy.

First Philippine Holdings Corporation also seeks new areas for industrial parks. It is actively searching for new areas to build industrial parks due to increased interest from Japanese locators.

President and Chief Operating Officer Elpidio Ibañez said their industrial park continues to grow and the company is also looking at other sites where it can build to accommodate the growing number of companies that are looking to locate to the Philippines.

Subsidiary First Philippine Industrial Park, Inc. operates a 450 hectare area in Batangas province south of Manila called the First Philippine Industrial Park. First Philippine Holdings expects five more locators to add to its more than 60 customers inside the park by the end of the year.

Most of the firm’s growth will come from the power sector. Power generation still accounts for most of the company’s expenditures.

The company intends to grow the gas portfolio by 500 megawatts from 2014 to 2016 and another 800 MW for liquefied natural gas as it expect gas reserves to drop. There will also be expansion in renewable energy, particularly for wind and run-of-river hydroelectric power plants.

He said gas projects will cost around US$2.6 billion as US$1 billion will be spent for the regasification facility for LNG and US$1.6 billion for the building of the San Gabriel natural gas power plant.