10 investors join tender to develop Sarulla power plant

At least 10 local and foreign companies have formally joined a tender to develop a 300-megawatt geothermal power plant in Sarulla, North Sumatra, Bisnis Indonesia daily reported on Friday.

Among of the companies are PT Medco Energi Internasional, PT Pembangunan Perumahan, PT Geo Dipa, Mitsui, Mitsubishi Corporation and Marubeni Corp.

Ali Herman Ibrahim, state owned electricity company PLN’s director of power generation and primary energy, said in Jakarta on Thursday that the 10 companies would compete to win PLN’s offer to jointly resume the suspended Sarulla power project.

He said that PLN was evaluating the 10 companies’ bids. “The winner would be announced as soon as the evaluation has been completed,” he added.

PT Unocal North Sumatra Geothermal Ltd initially agreed to develop the US$570 million geothermal power plant. But it later pulled out from the project and sold it to PLN for $60 million. (*)