MAYNILAD Water Services Inc. expects business to be encouraging in 2025 amid continued business expansion.
Ramoncito Fernandez, Maynilad president, last week said the company is optimistic about the economy’s prospects.
“(It) should be a better year. The economy is still growing and definitely demand for water will still continue to grow. We’re looking forward for a better year, much much better. Our water supply is definitely better with La Nina. Plus also all of our programs and projects have already started to yield positive impact to our operation,” Fernandez added at a chance interview at the the sidelines of Management Association of the Philippines meeting in Taguig City on Jan. 16, 2025.
Fernandez said the company is sticking to its medium-term capital spending of P160 billion, of which spending for the year may hit north of P30 billion.
Fernandez said about 30 percent of the allocation will go to the company’s expansion of its wastewater treatment plants.
In December, Randolph Estrellado, Maynilad chief operating officer, said Maynilad is set to award the P30 billion water treatment and pipe laying project in Rizal — P10 billion for the water treatment plant in Teresa, Rizal and the rest for the pipe laying that will connect the Kaliwa Dam to the plant and Maynilad’s customers.
“It is critical for us that, when the Kaliwa Dam is completed, these projects will also be completed,” Estrella said, as he noted Kaliwa Dam’s timetable for completion by 2028 or 2029.
“It is necessary that, before the dam is completed, all our projects should also be completed since it takes about three years to build a treatment plant. Then we still have to lay pipes from Teresa, Rizal down Binangonan and across the Laguna Lake,” he added.
The P12.2- billion Kaliwa Dam is expected to provide 600 million liters of water per day.
Estrellado said Maynilad acquired the land for the Teresa Water Treatment Plant, while two contracts for the laying of pipes in Teresa and Morong, Rizal has been awarded.
This year, the contracts for the pipes in Binangonan and the treatment plants will be awarded, he said.
“Hopefully we will finish our projects on time because, typically, securing the permits is the biggest issue for us since it could take over a year just to get permits to lay wastewater pipes,” he said.
Estrellado said the initial portions of the water treatment and pipe laying project form part of the investments Maynilad has committed investments of P26 billion in its concession agreement.