Aseagas continues plant shutdown

Aboitiz Power Corp. was informed by its wholly-owned subsidiary Aseagas Corp. that the latter will continue the shutdown of its 8.8-MW biomass power plant in Lian, Batangas to further assess the plant’s technical problems and determine the appropriate way forward for the facility.

The Lian plant earlier ceased operations due to unavailability of the supply of organic effluent wastewater from Absolut Distillers, Inc.

Aseagas also disclosed today that it prepaid its outstanding loan with the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) in the amount of Php2.368 billion. Aseagas also has invested equity of around Php950 million for the biomass plant, and has around Php460 million in outstanding liabilities.

“This continued shutdown will allow us to look at our options, taking into consideration the interests of all our stakeholders,” AboitizPower President and COO Antonio R. Moraza said.

“Despite these challenges, our other projects are progressing as planned. About 500 MW of attributable capacity, mainly from baseload and hydro power plants, will come online in 2018. We are on track to meeting our 4,000-MW net attributable capacity target by 2020.”