B4 New senior PVB executives.
Philippine Veterans Bank chairman Roberto de Ocampo (fourth from left) and president Nonilo Cruz (third from right) introduce the new officers joining the bank’s senior management. They are senior vice president Noel Malabag (rightmost) as treasury group ead, SVP Leah Espino (fourth from right) as branch banking group head and VP Anna Theresa Licaros (third from left) as board secretary. Joining the bank earlier this year are SVP Clodoveo Atienza (second from right) as credit group head, first VP Jose Noel Cadiena(second from left) as comptroller and finance group head and assistant VP Fabian Marco Verzosa as head of security (leftmost).
Bigger geothermal field bared By Alena Mae S. Flores
THE Maibarara geothermal field in Batangas province has additional steam reserves equivalent to 26 megawatts of electricity, according to a study conducted by Sinclair Knight Merz of New Zealand. Maibarara Geothermal Inc. is currently expanding the existing Maibarara geothermal power project by an additional 10 MW to bring the total output to 30 MW once completed by 2017. Maibarara tapped SKM to conduct a comprehensive thirdparty technical review of the geothermal field, which showed another potential of 10 MW to
26 MW of power output south of and outside of the current area of development. “Since this area is not being tapped at the moment for the 20-MW project, MGI preferred not to estimate such reserves at the moment. However, this provides additional confidence for future development for the project,” the company said in a
report to the Philippine Stock Exchange. SKM’s review included analysis of the resource assessment performed in-house, as well as a separate SKM reserve estimation and numerical modeling of the Maibarara reserves. Maibarara said its own simulation indicated proven reserves of 27.8 MW for 25 years while SKM calculated reserves at 44 MW. The company completed tests in June, supporting a 10-MW expansion of the Maibarara geothermal project. Maibarara is a joint-venture company owned by PetroGreen Energy Inc. (65 percent), TransAsia Oil & Energy Development
Corp. (25 percent), and PNOC Renewables Corp. (10 percent). PetroGreen is a subsidiary of PetroEnergy Resources Corp. of the Yuchengco Group. Maibarara currently operates an integrated 20-MW geothermal power facility in Sto. Tomas, Batangas that started commercial operations in February 8, 2014. The company started its expansion project in the second half of 2014 by drilling two new wells (MB15RD and MB16D), which were successfully completed 5 days and 14 days ahead of schedule, respectively. MB16D was flow-tested from December 2014 to February 2015, while MB15RD underwent similar discharge tests from
April to May 2015. Maibarara said MB15RD, which was originally designed and drilled as an injection well, attained commercial wellhead pressure, mass flow and MW output at full-bore opening at the end of May. The 10-MW expansion is estimated to cost P1.3 billion, company officials said earlier. Maibarara Geothermal president Francisco Delfin Jr. earlier the company would proceed with the financial closing for 70 percent of the project cost by August and shortly after the start of the construction. Delfin said talks with potential buyers of the expanded output were still ongoing.
BSP official expects Globe says ‘15 revenues may hit P100b higher growth in Q2 By Darwin G. Amojelar By Julito G. Rada ECONOMIC growth is expected to recover in the second quarter this year from the sluggish 5.2-percent expansion in the first quarter due mainly to a robust domestic demand condition, a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas official said over the weekend. “Despite the slower-thanexpected output growth in the first quarter of 2015, domestic demand conditions remain firm owing to solid private household and capital spending as well as buoyant business confidence,” Bangko Sentral director Zeno Ronald Abenoja said in an e-mailed message. “Ample domestic liquidity and planned higher public spend-
ing are also expected to support economic activity in the coming months,” Abenoja said. Abenoja said GDP growth was expected to improve in the second quarter from the 5.2-percent expansion in the previous quarter. Abenoja said a PBC measurement, which is a standardized trend-cycle component of the GDP growth rate for industry and services (excluding agriculture), showed it was just slightly “above the trend rate of growth of 5.9 percent for the period Q1 2004-Q1 2015.” He also said the composite coincident index, which is also a measure of the country’s growth cycle, pointed to a slight improvement in economic growth for the second quarter 2015.
GLOBE Telecom Inc. said revenues will likely hit P100 billion in 2015 on faster growth in the second half. “Yes, absolutely, if you look at the first half, I don’t know if we can exceed that but you can multiply it by two and see what you get,” Globe president and chief executive Ernest Cu said over the weekend. Globe’s consolidated service revenues in the first six months of 2015 stood at P53.8 billion, up 13 percent from P47.7 billion a year ago, on the strength of robust gains on mobile data and broadband, as more customers adopted a digital lifestyle. Globe posted a consolidated service revenue of P99 billion in 2014, up 9 percent from P90.5 billion in 2013.
“You’ve seen us performed in the last five years, I think we will have to find reason why we can’t do it in the next five years more,” he added. The telecommunications company, owned by conglomerate Ayala Corp., posted a core net income, which excludes the impact of non-recurring items, of P8.6 billion in the Januaryto-June period from P7.6 billion year-on-year The second-ranked telecommunications company reported a net income of P8.7 billion in the first six months of the year from P6.8 billion on year. Globe’s mobile subscriber base reached 48.4 million at the end of June, up a solid 13 percent from 42.7 million a year ago driven by record gross acquisitions this period. The healthy growth in mo-
bile revenues was fueled by the surge in mobile data revenues, which reached P9.5 billion as of end-June, up a solid 53 percent from P6.2 billion reported a year ago. Broadband revenues stood at P7.6 billion as of end June 2015, with total subscriber base now reaching close to 3.5 million. The solid growth in revenues was driven by subscriber expansion in both the wireless, increasing by 64 percent and wired services by 14 percent. Globe’s fixed line data business increased 20 percent to P3.1 billion in the first half of the year from P2.6 billion last year, due mainly to the expansion in circuit count and increased usage triggered by the strong demand for data connectivity, managed services and cloud solutions.