Four Chinese companies to sign power contracts

Ika Krismantari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

After a delay of almost two months, four Chinese companies have finally received the green light from state-owned power utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) to go ahead with their coal-fired power plant projects.

"The contracts will be signed Monday after having been delayed for almost 2 months," PLN director of power plants and primary energy Ali Herman said Friday in Jakarta.

Herman said that the contracts could be signed after the companies met all the requirements set by PLN's bidding committee.

The four projects are the new 600-megawatt (MW) Paiton power plant in East Java, the new 600-MW Suralaya plant in Banten, the 300-MW Labuan plant in Banten and the 300-MW Indramayu plant in West Java.

The companies that will sign the contracts are Harbin Power, the winner of the tender for the new Paiton power plant, China National Technical Import & Export Corp. (CNTIC), which won the contract for the new Suralaya plant, Chenda Engineering Corporation and its partner PT Truba Jurong Engineering for the Labuan plant, and a consortium of China National Machinery Industry Corporation (Sinomach), China National Electronics Equipment Company (CNEEC) and PT Penta Adi Samudera for the Indramayu power plant.

The power plants are being built as part of the government's fast-track program to provide additional power supply of about 10,000 MW by 2009.

Herman said that the signing of the contracts for the four power plants, which was originally supposed to have taken place in January, had been delayed because the developers failed to submit guarantees that the financing of the projects would be secured on schedule.

The signing of the contracts for two other coal-fired power plants, the Awar Awar plant in East Java and the Rembang plant in Central Java, each with a capacity of 300 MW, has also been delayed for similar reasons.

"For the Awar Awar and Rembang power plants, we have to wait for the investors to complete some of their documents before signing the contracts," Herman said.

Herman said that a number of other projects would be retendered on March 20 after the first tenders failed to attract qualified bidders.

The projects to be retendered include the 600-MW Tanjung Jati coal-fired power plant in Central Java, the 300-MW Teluk Naga plant in Banten, the 300-MW Pelabuhan Ratu plant in West Java and the 300-MW Pacitan plant in East Java.

As part of the fast-track program, Herman said, PLN would also open the tenders for the construction of 30 power plants outside Java and Bali.

Under the program, PLN will provide additional power supply of 6,900 MW for Java and Bali, and 3,100 MW for areas outside Java and Bali.