NPC earmarks P220 B for capex
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
By MYRNA M. VELASCO
State-run National Power Corporation (NPC) is scheduled to fork out P220.36 billion for its capital expenditures (capex) this year, about 7.0-percent lower than its P236.13 billion allocation in 2006.
Official data has shown that chunk of the budget will be for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) amounting to P206.87 billion or 94 percent of the total, lower than the P225.67 billion last year.
The power firm will shell out P11.22 billion for capital outlay, while P2.27 billion will be earmarked for capital services.
Because of the national government’s absorption of the P200-billion worth of oustanding debt obligations of NPC, its debt service payments is seen softening to P38.05 billion this year, down by 22 percent from last year’s P49 billion.
Also included in the company’s capex this year are value-added tax payments of P12.4 billion, payback of security deposit to Korea Electric Power Corporation and CBK Power Company with aggregate amount of P799 million, P182 million market operator’s fee to the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), and expenses for decommissioned power plants, including the preservation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
NPC President Cyril C. del Callar explained the capex cutdown was due to the divestment of the two of its medium-scale hydro power plants last year; namely the 112-megawatt Pantabangan-Masiway and 360-MW Magat hydro plants.
"The sale of these power plants resulted to the drop in our maintenance and operation costs," the NPC chief added.
It must be noted that the buyers of these power plants have separately programmed both the upgrading and expansion of the NPC plants.
Bulk of the budget allocation will be for NPC’s capacity payments of contracted supply from independent power producers (IPPs) amounting to P88.9 billion, another significant budget of P53.35 billion to purchase fuel that would be utilized to generate electricity.
The power firm, aside from being an off-taker or buyer of electricity outputs of the power plants, also has to honor its energy conversion agreements (ECAs) with the IPPs, which meant that it takes responsibility on the procurement of fuel supply to run the power plants.
It was shown that substantial portion of fuel purchases will be for oil that would amount to P15.34 billion and followed by natural gas at P13.8 billion.
The expenses for other fuel supply, such as geothermal steam would cost P12.8 billion and another P11.34 billion for coal procurement.
On debt payments, del Callar noted that the amount was way lower because the amount of "due and demandable debts" would be less this year.
The power firm’s chief executive previously noted that they might still resort to borrowings worth $ 500 million this 2007 to augment their funding needs.
The disposal of its assets is expected to continue but the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) has yet to finalize the timetable of the power plants to be sold within the year. (MMV)
posted by philpower @ 9:25 PM,
