Semirara Mining and Power Corp. and Meralco PowerGen Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Manila Electric Co., formed a joint venture to develop a 700-megawatt coal plant in Calaca, Batangas costing P90 billion.
Semirara Mining, a unit of DMCI Holdings Inc. of the Consunji Group, said in a disclosure to the stock exchange Thursday it signed a joint venture agreement with Meralco PowerGen “for the purpose of owning, constructing and operating a 700-MW coal fired power plant to be located in Calaca, Batangas.”
Meralco PowerGen is the power generation arm of Meralco, which has also been scouting for possible partners to increase its power portfolio to 3,000 MW.
The project company for the coal power plant will be St. Raphael Power Generation Corp., which was incorporated in 2013.
“An environmental compliance certificate ECC-CO-1530-0012 dated Sept. 17, 2015 has been issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for said project,” Semirara Mining said.
DMCI chairman Isidro Consunji said Semirara Mining and Meralco PowerGen would equally take a 40-percent stake in the project, with Marubeni Corp. of Japan holding the balance.
“Meralco will buy the output,” Consunji said.
The move came shortly after Consunji confirmed talks with Meralco and Marubeni to build the two-units coal plant in Batangas.
Consunji said earlier the company was in preliminary discussions with the two groups and expected to finalize the ownership structure of the project.
The proposed power plant is the second phase of the planned expansion of the Calaca coal-fired plant facility.
Semirara Mining’s board approved the second phase of the expansion in 2014 for the investment in two units of 350 MW each, using pulverized coal technology.
The current Calaca facility consists of two 300-MW generating units and is designed to utilize local coal from Semirara.
DMCI bought the Calaca plant from the government in July 2009, with a bid of $361.7 million.
The company pursued the first phase expansion of an additional 300-MW capacity which was completed and started commercial operations this year.