Local firm Vires Energy Corporation (VEC) has tapped the consortium of foreign firms Seanergy Singapore and London Marine Consultants to serve as owner’s engineer at the commissioning stage of the company’s proposed integrated liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal and power plant project.
VEC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of listed firm A. Brown Company Inc., indicated that it already completed the pre-front end engineering design (pre-FEED) study for the “marine and onshore scope of the natural gas-fired power plant component of the project.”
Following that, the LNG project’s sponsor-firm noted that the FEED phase of the venture already commenced; and that is a project development phase prior to actual construction.
The notice-to-proceed for VEC’s LNG facility was granted this year by the Department of Energy (DOE); and the project which is to be sited in Batangas City will reach commercial operations in 2023.
At this stage, VEC said it already shortlisted engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors for the marine and onshore facilities for the floating power plant; although it had not named the qualified entities yet for the EPC auction.
While advancing various projects under its designated corporate vehicles, A Brown reported 23.4-percent income rise to P368 million in this year’s nine months from P298.2 million within parallel period in 2020.
For the third quarter alone, the company similarly logged significant income rise of 68-percent to P142.1 million from the year-ago level of P84.6 million.
“Higher margins in the real estate segment due to lower development costs for corresponding units sold contributed to the higher net income,” the company expounded.
On the power generation segment of the company’s business, its two operating power plants – Palm Concepcion Power Corporation and Peakpower Energy Inc., contributed P214.2 million to the net income, which had gone up from last year’s P210 million.
As of end-September this year, total assets of the company had climbed by 10.4-percent to P7.18 billion from the year-ago level of P6.50 billion.