Coal briquettes explored as alternative fuel to costly LPG

Coal briquettes explored as alternative fuel to costly LPG

The Department of Energy is experimenting on commercial development of coal briquettes as alternative to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), as a way to ease pricing pressures on this commonly-used commodity for cooking. This proposed venture is getting a jumpstart with DMCI Holdings Inc., operator of the Semirara Coal Mining Corporation in Antique, already taking first steps to introduce this in the domestic market. DMCI Holdings president Isidro Consunji noted that they will be tapping the application of a German coal briquetting technology for this venture; but he withheld yet some other details on how they plan to go forward with the investment plan. Energy Secretary Raphael P.M. Lotilla, for his part, acknowledged that the potential of eventually having an alternative to LPG comes as a relief for them as energy planners of the country, especially so since the raw material can be sourced locally. He said this will take pressure off from the consumers, who for the longest time, have also been held hostage by the vagaries of volatility of LPG contract prices in the world market. The development of cooking fuel from indigenous source is seen in keeping with the government’s policy of energy independence, targetted at 60 percent by 2010. To date, the country is depending heavily on importation of roughly 55percent to satiate domestic LPG demand; while the rest are from the outputs of local refiners. Consunji explained that the coal briquettes to be turned as a cooking fuel will be utilized out of what are already considered as "waste coal" from the Semirara mine. As experimented upon by other countries, it was noted that technology will afford the production of sulphur-fixed coal briquettes, with savings from raw material also registered at about 10 percent; thus, emissions can be made lower as compared to direct combustion of bulk coal. Currently available technology for briquette production is now well established and even set multi-series and multifunctional for stoves or burners. Briquettes, as experienced by other countries like India and even Indonesia, thrived a lot cheaper than LPG; and depending on the raw material to be used, it oftentimes come cleaner as alternative. Market watchers emphasized that LPG price volatilities are primarily attributed to increasing demand for imports, especially for countries also experiencing hurried expansion, both in their economy and size of population, such as in the case of China and India. Other markets were reported to have already tried on other alterative fuels or cooking, such as dimethyl ether (DME) which is a also a liquid form extracted from coal.

 

http://www.mb.com.ph/BSNS2006022657211.html

 

Lipitor is 2005's bestselling drug

Lipitor is 2005's bestselling drug

FRANKFURT-The 25 top-selling medicines last year targeted persistent illnesses such as high cholesterol, stomach ulcers and depression that drugmakers can market to patients in television commercials and magazine ads. Cheaper competition may hurt some of these products this year.

Pfizer Inc.'s cholesterol-cutting Lipitor was the best-selling treatment for the fifth year in a row, bringing in $12.2 billion in 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Plavix, the clot treatment sold by Sanofi-Aventis SA and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., rose to No. 2 with $6.3 billion in sales. Advair, a GlaxoSmithKline Plc asthma drug, had sales of $5.5 billion, pushing it up a spot to third.

Drugmakers spent $4 billion in 2004 to pitch consumer medicines to treat illnesses that need to be controlled long-term, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Loss of patent protection of several drugs to treat these chronic ailments, such as Merck & Co.'s Zocor cholesterol medicine, means some of the products in the top 25 list in 2005 will drop off this year, analysts said.

"What we're seeing is the big successes of the late 1990s are now getting hit,'' Marie-Helene Leopold, an analyst at Societe Generale in Paris, said in telephone interview.

Pfizer's Lipitor and Norvasc, the fourth-best selling medicine with $4.7 billion in revenue, may soon face generic challenges.

AstraZeneca Plc used the "Purple Pill" marketing campaign to switch patients to the Nexium ulcer medicine when its Prilosec lost sales to generic competitors. Nexium sales rose 19 percent in 2005 to $4.6 billion, making it the fifth-best seller.

High-priced drugs can only keep their sales with the help of patent protection. The loss of a patent for one drug may mean loss of sales for a whole class of drugs as governments and health insurers get more aggressive about switching patients to cheaper medications.

The rankings are based on 2005 sales figures gathered by Bloomberg from company releases. Sales of drugs sold by multiple companies are combined. The table excludes product sales by Japanese companies.

Lipitor sales growth may be slowing. Revenue from the product rose 3 percent in the last quarter of 2005, down from 20-percent growth in the first two quarters.

It faces competition not only from rivals such as Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck's Zocor and New York-based Bristol-Myers's Pravachol, but also from their generic copies that will probably enter the market this year.

"Pfizer, in particular, is really going to suffer," said Martyn Link, a senior life sciences analyst at Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd. "In 2004, Pfizer had five drugs in the top 25, in 2009 they'll only have one."

Last week, New York-based Pfizer said revenue from Lipitor would exceed $13 billion this year. The company plans to keep sales growing this year through an advertising campaign designed to focus consumers on the heart benefits of lowering cholesterol.

The introduction of a generic drug can cut sales of a branded medicine by as much as 70 percent as patients and payers switch to the cheaper copies. For example, sales of Pfizer's Neurontin for epilepsy sales dropped to $639 million in 2005 from $2,723 million in 2004. Bloomberg

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/2006/0216/16%20cos%20lipitor.php

The shortage of entrepreneurial youth

Outside The Box
John Mangun

One of the most disturbing trends that I see in the local business scene is the lack of creative entrepreneurship among our youth.

Of course, there are numerous examples that we can use to demonstrate the opposite. Almost every week in one of the newspapers' Sunday magazines is a feature about this under-30 or those fresh graduates that have opened a new business. Their efforts are commendable. However, I find it distressing that, with at least a couple of million of people in the under-30 age group with access to the financial means to start a creative business, the few that accomplish this feat are the great exceptions to the rule.

Every nation depends on the vibrancy, literary, commercial, scientific and social dynamism of its youth to make substantial national progress for the future. We do not seem to have the kind of personal fervor and zeal as in generations past.

Perhaps it would be easy to dismiss my concerns as the ramblings of a late middle-aged man decrying the lost youth of 2006, as he looses and grow farther from his own youth. But, come on, I am just as big a fan of Parokya ni Edgar, Cueshé and Rivermaya as my teenage sons. I would just prefer to see more teenagers working to buy their iPods and Nokias than expect these toys to fall as manna from parental heaven.

So often, we hear negative things about the Filipino and the culture. Crab mentality and gaya-gaya mentality and all the other negatives that we seem too often pronounced as an ingrained part of Filipino society, which hinders and hampers our nation. And by assuming that these are cultural traits, how could we expect our youth to strive for excellence and attempt new endeavors? By what example and by whose teaching have we come to so often generally believe that the Filipino is only capable of "winning" by beating another man in a boxing ring or on a billiard table? Or that the only productive nation building that we can do is far away on some other shore?

I see the Filipinos of my generation and older who struggled and crawled out of the economic devastation of World War II as models to be emulated. So many started with nothing and built a nation of merit and a future for themselves. Has it been so long ago, that the nation, and more particularly the young, has forgotten that the Philippines was laid bare and broken after World War II? Have we forgotten that the Philippines rose from the ashes by the Filipinos' own toil and without assistance, unlike the former foes Japan and Germany ?

My wife's ninong, nearly 100 now, walked almost all the way from Ilocos to Manila after the war to sweep floors at Meralco. When he finally retired, he was the manager of a mechanics maintenance division. He did it on his own.

The men and women who built this country in the last 60 years certainly expected nothing from government. Of course, they worked the system and some bent and broke the rules to gain wealth. However, an independent Philippines was created from dust, economically shackled by oppressive USA-forced laws and the turmoil of that fresh independence.

Read Dr. Jose Rizal's El Filibusterismo and the story of the UST students Isagani, Makaraig and Sandoval. They want to learn Spanish to broaden their intelligence, and they fight through the system all the while knowing their efforts might probably come to nothing. They persevered with nothing less than the same entrepreneurial spirit it takes to create a business.

I know the analogy may seem far-fetched to some. However, if you have started your own business, you know exactly what I mean. No man or woman who began an enterprise behaved like a crying baby waiting to be breast-fed. I speak to student groups quite often and am dismayed when challenged to excel, so often their excuses start with, "But the government does not. . . ." What has changed in the last few decades that a generation or two has the idea that they must wait for the government, of all improbable institutions, to provide the resources, infrastructure, or whatever, for them to have the opportunity to succeed?

When 30 percent of our high-school graduates list first as their life's ambition to be able to work abroad, something is terribly wrong. And when they eventually leave, with the parting words that they will return when the government "improves," the Philippines is headed toward sure disaster.

Twenty years ago, Thais and Malaysians did not leave their home country. They stayed and built their nation. Forty years ago, Taiwanese graduates did not go abroad except for education and now we provide the manual labor for their economy.

The fault for this spineless attitude lies not with the government or the younger generations. I witnessed the same deterioration of determination and intestinal fortitude in my own birth nation. The pattern was somewhat the same as here in the Philippines , but here the condition is more rapid. I will tell you this: traditional values of social and ethical right and wrong fell first followed by a whimpering expectation of government "help" and then the final collapse of a proper personal work ethic.

The beginning of the decline of a nation starts with the loss of faith and belief in that nation. Pride in the past rather than satisfaction with the present, is more important to build the strength necessary to meet the future.

Whom can our young people look to for words and deeds that give optimism and enthusiasm for the Philippines ? Our political leaders? Our business leaders? Their own parents?

Comments to mangun@email.com.

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/2006/0216/16%20oped%20outside.php

Everyone and everything has a price

Everyone and everything has a price
BIZLINKS By Rey gamboa
The Philippine Star 02/17/2006

The outstanding offer by Banco de Oro – currently ranked as sixth largest in the country – to merge with Equitable PCI Bank – which is presently the third largest in rank – and to become the surviving entity smacks of spunk and calculated wiliness.

EPCIB, even after declaring a good performance during the first three quarters of 2005, continues to be hobbled by the Jose Velarde controversy. At that time, more than six years ago, EPCIB was selling at P96.76 per share; it is now ‘undervalued’ at P63.

In its released third quarter report last year, EPCIB declared a revenue growth of almost 20 percent, not bad if compared to the banking sector’s 21-percent growth average. Net income, in fact, was 40 percent higher.

Millions of Filipinos who have a stake in EPCIB through their membership in the Social Security System (SSS) and the Government Social Insurance System (GSIS) have to watch out how this merger proposal turns out. SSS, after all, owns about 29 percent of EPCIB, while GSIS has around 12.4 percent, or a combined powerful 42 percent.

Both pension funds have been shrouded with speculations of bankruptcy, the fouled EPCIB acquisition and government’s continued meddling in their funds being a couple of reasons for the rumored financial stress.

Both pension funds had bought their EPCIB shares at an average price of P92 during the Estrada administration, only to wake up one morning to realize that their combined investment of P16 billion had been whittled down to roughly P9.2 billion in the aftermath of the Jose Velarde investigations.

Merger of ‘equals’

Now, BDO is offering "a merger of equals" with EPCIB after successfully gaining a foothold in the bigger bank when it bought out the Go family’s 24.7 -percent ownership. Together with its parent, SM Investments, the BDO group now owns more than 30 percent of EPCIB. BDO is proposing a share swap, offering 1.6 BDO shares for every one of EPCIB. Using Wednesday’s closing price of P34.50 per BDO share, this values EPCIB at P55.20 per share, definitely lower than its current market price of P63 per share.

This is all not sitting well with GSIS’s Winston Garcia who has strongly come up with statements that short of condemns the BDO proposal. If you really think about it, GSIS is playing this game smartly. With its stake a little more than an eighth of EPCIB, the government’s pension fund does not really have a big say especially if SSS will eventually agree to the BDO proposal.

SSS clearly holds the key to the merger given its bigger stake in the bank. But its president, Cora dela Paz, manages to keep her cards close to her chest and has remained mum since that botched BDO-SSS deal more than a year ago. There are rumors that Dela Paz may not stay long as SSS president. If this is true, whoever is the successor would be a much-sought after personality as BDO pursues its merger plans.

An approval of two-thirds or 67 percent of EPCI’s shareholders is needed to break the impasse and move ahead with the merger plan. BDO’s Jan. 31 deadline, however, has lapsed without any agreement.

EPCIB directors have repeatedly announced that the merger offer is still under study, while BDO continues to sit out the indecisiveness of other EPCIB shareholders by saying that it is willing to extend the proposal’s deadline. So far, everything continues to be silent on all fronts – except GSIS’s.

Merger of ‘equals’

So far, Winston Garcia cannot be accused of unfairly selling out the pension fund and its EPCIB shares if ever SSS capitulates in favor of the BDO offer. Recently, GSIS put out several print ads for the block sale of its entire stake in EPCIB of about 90 million shares at P92 each or a total of about P8.3 billion.

Now, whether there will actually be takers to its ads remains to be seen. Still, Garcia never fails to update all; latest, he announced that two groups (which he did not identify) had offered to purchase GSIS’s stake. It could all be braggadocio, but for the members’ sake, I hope there is something really cooking.

In the meantime, it seems that the only beneficiaries to this merger proposal are the market speculators, as can be seen in the volatility of EPCI and BDO’s share prices. As one brokerage house says, EPCIB’s search for a white knight is fanning speculative interest on the stock.

On the part of BDO, however, concerns that it may have to sweeten the offer to get the approval of shareholders are putting pressure on its share price.

Merger of ‘equals’

Perhaps, there is really still room for BDO’s offer to get better. BDO, after all, is buying into a bank so it could catapult itself to becoming the third largest in an industry that is going through another round of mergers and acquisitions. Acquiring leadership position in the banking industry inadvertently comes at a premium price.

Any improvement in EPCIB share prices will be good for GSIS and SSS. But to dream that GSIS – and even SSS – will get top price equivalent to what they shelled out more than six years ago could just be a little too much.

Let’s admit it; EPCIB has gone through a lot in recent years since those days of massive deposit withdrawals when it was linked to the controversial Jose Velarde account. But even with more stringent regulations, EPCIB – despite its being the current third largest – will have to beef up its eroded asset and capital base. It would have to allot more provisions for probable losses that may arise from soured loans.

Simply put, all parties will need to agree on an honest-to-goodness valuation of EPCIB shares. The sooner all partisan stakeholders accept this, only then will things really start moving. So who or what can put an end to all of this? Everyone and everything has a price, my friends.

Energy self-sufficiency – an illusive dream

Energy is one factor that has burdened the local economy preventing it from taking off during the past years. Its toll on the economy keeps on escalating as the cost of energy in the world market increases and the country’s reliance on imported energy remains unabated.

What are the priority measures that the Department of Energy is currently pursuing to facilitate economic growth? What is being done to address the relatively high electricity rates in the country compared to the rest of the Asian region?

"Breaking Barriers" on IBC-TV13 (12 mn every Thursday) will feature on Thursday, 23rd February 2006, Energy Secretary Raphael P. M. Lotilla. Join us break barriers and gain insights into the views of Sec. Lotilla on various issues related to the energy situation in the country. Watch it.

Search for the Philippine Poker Champion

The search for the first Philippine Poker Champion continues as non-wager satellite tournaments are held weekly in various sites accredited by the Philippine Poker Tour. The sites and schedules are as follows: Valle Verde Country Club in Pasig (every Saturday, 12:20 p.m.); San Mig Alabang Town Center in Alabang (every Wednesday, 7 p.m.); Pioneer Highlands in Mandaluyong City (every Thursday, 7 p.m.) and Milky Way at Las Pinas (every Thursday, 7 p.m.). For confirmation and reservations, please call the secretariat (c/o Cindy) at tel. nos. 817-9092 or 812-0153.

Winners of the non-wager satellite tournaments earn a set for the Main Event scheduled on 8th and 9th April 2006 at the Airport Casino Filipino Parañaque.

One may also play at the Main Event by registering and paying the full tournament fee at Philippine Poker Tour offices.

Visit www.PhilippinePokerTour.com for more details about the search for the first Philippine Poker Champion being conducted in partnership with Solar Entertainment and The Philippine Star.

Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 4th Floor, 156 Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at reydgamboa@yahoo.com or at reygamboa@linkedge.biz. If you wish to view the previous columns, you may visit my website at http://www.bizlinks.linkedge.biz.

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200602170715.htm

Citisec Online to sell shares to public by June

Citisec Online to sell shares to public by June

Citisec Online, a local online brokerage firm, plans to sell its shares to the public, with an initial public offering (IPO) scheduled by June or July this year.

If it pushes through, the company would be the first purely online broker to go public, and would be the second IPO for the year after First Gen Corp.

Francis Lim, Philippine Stock Exchange president, said the company will offer some 110 million shares to the public or 25.6 percent of its issued and outstanding common stock.

The company filed its IPO requirements with the PSE and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late last week.

“This is a welcome development for us. This is clearly a vote of confidence that companies like CitisecOnline can mobilize capital by making use of the stock market,” Lim told reporters.

Industry sources said that CitisecOnline will sell new shares at a minimum of P1 apiece to a maximum of P1.50 to raise from P110 million to P165 million.

A source said the company will use the proceeds for its market education services to increase its client base to 1,000 by year-end. CitisecOnline has more than 300 clients to date.

The company will offer its shares mostly to domestic buyers. It will also offer shares online but will only do so through the Internet through its website, www.citiseconline.com.

The shares will be listed in the small and medium enterprises (SME) board of the PSE. The SME board currently includes Cashrounds Inc., Makati Finance Corp., and SQL Wizard Inc. This is because CitisecOnline has a total market capitalization of less than P700 million.
--Cai U. Ordinario

Manila Times
Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Business Options: Local development and political will for good governance

Business Options

 

 

Local development and political will for good governance

Lydia N. Orial

The path to real local development requires a strong political will by the local chief executive (LCE) and his team to practice good governance. Unfortunately, these LCEs are a very rare breed. That is a sad, but true assessment of the current state of local governance in the Philippines. This is one major reason why the LGU bond market has not really taken off. In bond flotation, an LGU must exercise transparency and accountability in terms of its decision-making process and the disclosure of information to enable investors to monitor the performance of the LGU itself and the project subject of bond float. And this is a big NO-NO to majority of our LCEs. That is why LCEs who dare float bonds must be commended. They know that venturing into the capital market will make them and their operations open to public scrutiny, and they may lose total "control" over the implementation of the project subject of the bond issue. But they are bold enough to take this step, because the improvement of service to their constituents is their number one concern, and because they have nothing to hide.

The Municipality of Baliwag is a case in point. The Municipality recently signed the documents needed to issue P50-million worth of "Star Bonds." The proceeds from the P50-million bonds will be used to finance the construction of an Integrated Waste Management System and Materials Recovery Facility (IWMS-MRF) that will transform municipal, commercial and industrial wastes into recyclable materials, biogas and organic fertilizer. The IWMS-MRF is the first-ever integrated waste management facility in the country which will rise on a three-hectare lot in Barangay Tarcan.

The Municipality of Baliwag’s bond flotation will soon become a reality because its local officials were not afraid to take the bold step. The local government made all its financial records available to the financial institutions, and more importantly, subjected itself to an in-depth rating of all aspects of its operations. Baliwag was rated "A" by an independent Rating Committee using the internationally-accepted LGU rating system of the LGU Guarantee Corporation. This raises Baliwag to the level of the "more sophisticated LGUs" that have successfully penetrated the capital market. While many LGUs had to wait for one to two years before successfully launching their bonds, Baliwag spent less than one year finalizing its issue, thanks to the full support given by the Sanggunian members, local officials, and municipal constituents to Mayor Romeo Estrella.

Baliwag’s bond flotation was, however, not problem-free. Some delays were experienced in getting the Bulacan provincial council’s validation of the ordinance authorizing the municipal bond flotation and in the issuance of the Environmental Compliance Certificate from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). The latter comes as a surprise considering DENR’s primary role in the implementation of RA 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act. This goes to show that it is not just the local governments, but also the national government agencies, which should practice good governance. Meanwhile, project acceptance by the community where the facility will be located was even accomplished ahead. This was achieved through an effective dissemination campaign initiated by local councils during public hearings, and the strong support demonstrated by the local leaders.

While most local officials chose the more established direct loan route, Mayor Estrella issued municipal bonds to finance its waste management project because he believed that bond flotation would allow the private sector and his constituents to participate in the development efforts of the municipality, by giving them the opportunity to become investors and bondholders.

The Baliwag experience is another clear manifestation that indeed, bond flotation is only for LGUs and LCEs that are willing to be transparent and practice good local governance. The process itself is not complicated. In fact, it took Baliwag only six months to get the bond market players’ approval as well as those of the Department of Finance (DOF) – Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). Moreover, the past negative experiences in the LGU bond market have been addressed. The LGU Guarantee Corporation in collaboration with the DOF – BLGF has developed a standard criteria for financial advisors (FAs) to eliminate "pseudo" FAs. The bidding system for bond players (FA, underwriter and trustee) will also now be implemented to ensure transparency and remove suspicion that contracts are given to the LCE’s allies as payment for political debts.

Another LGU, this time the Iloilo Province, will reportedly be the test case for the latter. My hats off to Governor Niel Tupas Sr. of Iloilo, and to Mayor Romeo Estrella of Baliwag. May your tribe increase!

Manila Bulletin, April 4, 2006

http://www.mb.com.ph/BSNS2006040460601.html