FGen completing Casecnan deal
We are waiting for all the government approvals, including the one from the competition commission. The ball is in the court of the government
Daily TribuneWe are waiting for all the government approvals, including the one from the competition commission. The ball is in the court of the government
Lopez-led First Gen Corp. is finalizing deals with local banks to finance its takeover of the 165-megawatt Casecnan Hydroelectric Power Plant, through its unit, Fresh River Lakes Corp.
"We are waiting for all the government approvals, including the one from the competition commission. The ball is in the court of the government," FGen president and chief operating officer Francis Giles Puno said in an interview with reporters last week.
"In the meantime, we are arranging financing. We are ready to pay for the bid price of Casecnan and we are excited to prove the feasibility of the investment," he added.
Critical asset
Puno pointed out that Casecnan will be a "very important asset" for the company due to its proximity to its Project Aya, a 120-megawatt pumped storage hydroelectric facility in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija.
FGen chief financial officer Emmanuel Antonio Singson previously said that the company is expecting to spend a total of $1.1 billion in capital expenditures this year.
This year's budget, which was supposed to be only about $585 million, almost doubled after the company won the highest bid of $526 million for the Casecnan Plant.
Fresh River Lakes' offer surpassed the minimum bid price of the plant of $227 billion.
Developed in the 1990s, Casecnan Plant is a "run-of-river" type of power plant with a limited impounding area, located at Sitio Pauan, Barangay Villarica, Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija. It was covered by a build-operate-transfer agreement, which ended on 11 December 2021.
Based on the government's initial privatization timeline, the completion of the plant's sale should have been completed last year.
