MANILA – Aboitiz Power Corp. has earmarked PHP33 billion for capital expenditure (capex) for 2020, as its parent company Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV) reduced its capital outlay for this year.
During the company’s virtual annual stockholders’ meeting Monday, president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Rubio said AboitizPower initially set its capex at PHP41 billion this year compared to PHP35 billion spent in 2019.
AEV reduced its capex this year to PHP47 billion from PHP73 billion it previously announced.
Rubio said AboitizPower’s capex for this year is 17 percent higher than 2019’s spending of PHP35 billion.
“It’s primarily for the construction of GNPower Dinginin facilities. However, we are reviewing the schedule of the rest of our capital expenditures given the current situation,” he added.
Unit 1 of GNPower Dinginin will commence its commercial operation by the first quarter of 2021 while Unit 2 will start by the second quarter next year.
“As far as demand is concerned, the curtailed economic activity brought about by the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) has resulted in lower demand and consumption, which in turn have affected revenue targets for our business both generation and distribution, even in our retail electricity supply business units,” Rubio said.
He said despite the ECQ, all of its power plants remain online to provide power for hospitals, government institutions, and critical businesses.
“We are operating all power plants within the lockdown communities and keeping operators, team members in our facilities on (a) 14-day cycle,” he added.
Rubio said an uptick in demand is expected due to higher temperatures during the dry season and also the easing of community quarantine measures in other parts of the country.
“We are already working on our business recovery plans to allow us to take advantage of these promising developments and keep us on track with our goals despite the unusual business situation,” Rubio said.
In 2019, AboitizPower’s net income declined by 20 percent to PHP17.32 billion from PHP21.71 billion in 2018. (PNA)
