First Gen Corporation’s wholly-owned subsidiary First NatGas Power Corp. has signed a US$265 million export credit facility with KfW IPEX-Bank of Germany (KfW) with a tenor of 13.7 years to partially finance the 414 MW San Gabriel natural gas-fired power project in Batangas City, Philippines.
This facility has an export credit guarantee provided by Euler Hermes, acting on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany. The proceeds of the loan will be used primarily to finance the eligible German and non-German goods and services under the equipment supply contract of the San Gabriel power plant with Siemens AG, the equipment supplier.
Francis Giles B. Puno, First Gen President and COO, stated:
First Gen is also funding the San Gabriel project with the proceeds of a recent US$300 million bond offering.Construction of the 414 MW San Gabriel plant is progressing with site preparation and piling activity in , as well as the manufacturing of key power plant components overseas. We need to make sure that the plant is built and commissioned on time as it will provide much-needed additional supply to the Luzon grid in the first half of 2016.
The new facility will consist of a SGT6-8000H gas turbine with a gross power of 274 MW, a SST6-5000 steam turbine, a hydrogen-cooled SGen6-2000H generator, and a Benson type heat-recovery steam generator (HRSG), all to be supplied by Siemens. The Siemens SPPA-T3000 control system will also be installed.
The advanced SGT6-8000H gas turbine technology has a proven combined-cycle efficiency of over 60%. San Gabriel will be one of the most efficient gas-fired power plants in South East Asia. The generated power will be fed to the power grid in Luzon.
San Gabriel CCP Plant is the first of three power plants planned for the larger, 1,350 MW San Gabriel natural gas power project in the Calabarzon, located about 110km south of Manila. The place is located near the existing 1,000 MW Santa Rita and 500 MW San Lorenzo combined-cycle natural gas power plants, both of which are owned by First Gen Corporation.
Currently First Gen has a capacity of 2,763 MW which is about 25% of total installed capacity in the country.