Banpu eyeing S. Sumatra minemouth power plant project

Thai energy conglomerate Banpu Plc. is seeking to utilize its massive but low-rank coal deposit in South Sumatra by developing minemouth power plant to supply electricity to Sumatra and to Java, a company official said over the week-end.

?Banpu is participating in the tender to build minemouth power plant held by (state electricity firm) PLN,? said Banpu Indonesia Business Development Director Pongsak Thongampai. He said Banpu had already submitted a proposal for the pre-qualification bid in September to PLN. "PLN will later pick the three most-qualified bidders and will negotiate with them about the implementation of the project," he said.

Pongsak said Banpu is looking to build 2x100 MW power plant in its mine concession and would spend up to US$ 200 million to build the power plant alone. He expected the plant would start to produce electricity in 2009-2010.

Banpu is the owner of PT. Barasentosa Lestari, which has some 500 million tons of low-rank coal reserves. Phongsak said the low coal quality has made it feasible only for mine mouth power plant.

Pongsak said Banpu is looking keen to build more power plant in Barasentosa mine as the mine has huge reserves.

?The market for more electricity generation in Sumatra and java is still huge, especially with the plant to build link to connect Sumatra-Java power grid. Sumatra, with its huge coal reserves, could become main electricity producer for Java in the future,? he said.

Banpu Group is currently Indonesia's third largest coal-mining group in Indonesia after Bumi Resources and Arutmin. The company's Indonesian units are planning to produce 14 million tons of coal this year. (alex)