First Philippine Holdings gets P10-B loan from BDO
First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPH) has secured a P10-billion loan from the country’s largest bank amid plans to focus on beefing up their geothermal assets this year.
In a stock exchange filing on Tuesday, the Lopez-led conglomerate said its 10-year term loan agreement with BDO Unibank Inc. would be used to fund general corporate “and other working capital requirements.”
The loan has an availability period of one year, meaning FPH can draw down the loan funds within such a period.
FPH energy subsidiary First Gen Corp., which supplies at least a fifth of the country’s electricity needs via its natural gas plants, earlier said they would earmark P35 billion in capital expenditures for 2025.
According to First Gen, 90 percent of the budget will be set aside for drilling activities and “growth projects” of Energy Development Corp. (EDC), its geothermal arm.
Last year, EDC said it wanted to spend P25 billion to boost its 282.5-megawatt (MW) Southern Negros geothermal project in Negros Oriental.
EDC said it would drill new wells to increase the project’s capacity and also build new road networks, pipeline routes, technologies and other infrastructure.
To sustain power plants
In order to accommodate these, EDC plans to expand the project area to 400 hectares (ha) from 151.5 ha currently.
This expansion is meant to “sustain operations” of the Nasuji power plant, Palinpinon geothermal power project Unit Nos. 1 and 2 and the Nasulo geothermal power plant, among other projects.
EDC currently operates 13 geothermal power stations in Leyte, Bicol, Southern Negros and North Cotabato, with an aggregate capacity of 1,189.34 MW, according to its website.
This is equivalent to around 80 percent of the country’s total installed geothermal power-generating capacity.
Apart from energy, FPH also has interests in property development via Rockwell Land Corp. and First Philippine Industrial Park. Its construction business, meanwhile, is under First Balfour Inc.
