Isramart llc: DBP to sell hydro plants’ carbon credits

Isramart llc news:

STATE-RUN Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) has agreed to sell carbon credits to be generated from three mini-hydro power plants funded by the lender to Tricorona Carbon Asset Management Pte. Ltd. of Singapore.

The emission-reduction purchase agreement, it said in a news release, represents a major step in the bank’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) activities and underlines its key role in the global climate-change program initiative.

Covered by the agreement are the Cantingas mini-hydro power plant owned and operated by Romblon Electric Cooperative Inc.; the Hinubasan mini-hydro power plant owned and operated by the municipality of Loreto on Dinagat Island; and the Sevilla mini-hydro power plant owned and operated by Bohol Electric Cooperative, with the municipality of Sevilla, Bohol, as coowner.

The three projects are expected to reduce emission by about 111,000 tons of carbon dioxide during the first seven-year crediting period, DBP said.

The agreement was facilitated by Carbon Aided Ltd. of London, which DBP tapped in 2008 as financial manager and agent in the sale of carbon credits of the three power projects.

DBP is currently working on the registration of the projects with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change CDM Executive Board in Bonn, Germany.

The CDM is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol, which allows industrialized countries with a greenhouse-gas reduction commitment to invest in initiatives that lessen emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more costly emission- reduction measures.

Under the CDM, project owners may profit from the sale of carbon emission-reduction credits that result from the implementation of their projects.

DBP posted a record net income of P6.09 billion for 2009 even as it continued to support the government’s sustainable-development initiatives by funding projects in four priority areas, namely, infrastructure and logistics; environmental
protection; social services; and micro, small and medium enterprises.

The figure represents a 70-percent increase from the 2008 profit of P3.6 billion. Return on equity as of the first quarter stood at 16.06 percent.

The bank ended the first quarter with total assets of P273 billion, the seventh-largest in the local industry.