First Gen Corp. is securing as much as P60 billion from a combination loan and internally generated funds to finance the drilling of as many as 40 wells and extract steam for its geothermal projects.
This was learned from Francis Giles Puno, First Gen Corp. president and chief executive officer, who said many of those wells are in the steam fields of Leyte and around Mt. Apo in south-central Mindanao.
According to Puno, half of the amount will finance the drilling phase of the projects and the other half will bring the entire operations to a full closure.
“Over the next three years, that’s a lot of capital for the operations,” he said at the sidelines of a corporate event hosted by the Net Zero Carbon Alliance in Pasig City Monday.
“That’s the only complication with geothermal, you need to clean up and invest to be able to extract more from the wells. Pretty much to sustain and a little bit of expansion,” Puno added.
First Gen has a combined capacity of 3,500 MW from a portfolio that includes natural gas, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind and solar power.
It also plans to spend as much as $20 billion until 2030 to add up to 9,640 MW capacity and achieve a total portfolio of 13,000 MW by then.
First Gen, through subsidiary Energy Development Corp. (EDC), has 1,185 megawatts (MW) of geothermal capacity equal to 62 percent of the country’s installed capacity, making the Philippines the third largest geothermal producer in the world.
