OREANDA-NEWS. Sumitomo Corporation announces that it has entered into a contract with Energy Development Corporation, the largest geothermal power generation company in the Philippines, for the relocation of the existing unit and equipment of the Northern Negros Geothermal Power Plant (hereinafter "NNGPP") to the site of the Nasulo Power Project (hereinafter "Nasulo"), in December 2012, and that it has recently commenced activities in relation to this project.

NNGPP, located in the northwestern part of the island of Negro in the central Philippines, was originally commissioned in 2007 and has a steam turbine/generator set manufactured by Fuji Electric Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "FE"), with its designed electricity generating capacity of 49.5MW. As it has become difficult to ensure enough steam to generate continuously, EDC has decided to relocate the existing machine and equipment from NNGPP to Nasulo, located in the southeast part of the same island of Negros.

Sumitomo is the prime contractor for the project, with Taihei Dengyo Kaisha, Ltd. and a local Philippine civil construction company engaged as key subcontractors. The project will receive technical assistance from the original equipment manufacturer (FE). Sumitomo plans to complete the relocation work in 2014.

Sumitomo, together with FE, has prior experience in the Philippines involving the construction in 1998 of the Malitbog Geothermal Power Plant (77.5MW x 3 units) on the island of Leyte, central Philippines, which is the largest geothermal power plant in the country. Total accumulated capacity of geothermal power projects in which Sumitomo have been engaged as prime contractor or supplier of main equipment in the world has reached 2,200MW. Sumitomo will pursue further geothermal power projects, not only in the Philippines but throughout the rest of the world, in the hopes of increasing clean geothermal energy to help reduce the effects of global climate change.