Eastern Petroleum chief executive officer Fernando Martinez said the $100m first phase consists of 23.5MW while the second phase will comprise another 23MW.
Martinez said in an interview: "We are already finished with site acquisition and working with the financial closing for the first phase. We are optimistic that we will meet the end-2016 target for the commercial operations.
"We are processing the debt financing. There are two local banks that we are in discussions with.
CARE has already begun pre-development activities and is planning to proceed with the actual groundwork in 2014.
Eastern Petroleum also selected Wellons to provide the power system and boilers for the biomass plant.
"The power plant will be [situated] at the heart of export processing zone where we are going to cover a fixed term of up to 10 years. We are already in the predevelopment stage. We hope to secure an [Environment Compliance Certificate] 60 days from now.
"Our biomass project will substantially reducedthe power rates by 30 percent to 40 percent, translating to about P5 per kilowatt-hour of savings.
