Alsons’ net earnings up 15% to P275M in 9 months

MANILA, Philippines — Alsons Consolidated Resources Inc. (ACR), the listed company of the Alcantara Group, posted a 15.2 percent rise in net earnings from January to September due to the operations of its first coal-fired power plant in Mindanao.

The company said net income reached P274.48 million during the period compared to the P238.09 million booked in the same period in 2016.

In terms of parent-attributable net earnings, ACR reported a 6.9 percent increase from P110.04 million last year to P117.66 million this year.

This was due to the robust revenue growth from the operations of the first 105-megawatt (MW) section of ACR’s 210 MW Sarangani Energy Corp. (SEC) coal-fired baseload power plant in Maasim, Sarangani Province.

The company’s consolidated revenues were up 6.7 percent to P5.22 billion this year from P4.88 billion last year.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) surged to P1.28 billion, up 73.8 percent from P718 million in the same period last year while EBITDA margin improved from 23 percent to 35 percent.

The first 105-MW section of the SEC plant began operating in April 2016, providing much needed baseload power to over three million people residing in the provinces of Sarangani, Compostela Valley, Agusan del Norte, and Agusan del Sur; as well as the cities of General Santos, Iligan and Butuan.

Meanwhile, the second SEC plant commenced construction last January and is targeted for completion in 2019, benefitting another three million residents of South Cotabato, Davao del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur and Cagayan de Oro City.

The $600-million SEC power plant is the largest power investment in Sarangani Province and the entire Region 12.

Aside from the SEC power plant, the company is also developing the 105-MW San Ramon Power Inc. (SRPI) baseload coal-fired power plant in Zamboanga City scheduled to commence commercial operations in 2021.

Before the end of 2017, ACR will commence construction of the P3.7-billion, 15.1 MW run-of -river hydroelectric power project at the Siguil River basin in Maasim, Sarangani Province, its first renewable energy plant.

“We look forward to an exciting year ahead of us as by the middle of 2018 we will have three projects under construction simultaneously: SEC section 2 which we expect to begin operating in 2019, Siguil Hydro which will start operations in 2020, and SRPI which is targeting to commence operations in 2021,” ACR executive vice president Tirso Santillan said.

Santillan said these three power plants would allow the company to have around 588 MW of generating capacity, approximately 25 percent of Mindanao’s projected peak power demand in 2021.