Chinese contractors offer lowest price for coal-fired power plants

Chinese contractors have offered lowest prices in the tenders for two coal-fired power plants with the capacity of between 600-700 MW to be built in Java as part of the 10,000 MW power plant project.

The prices offered by the Chinese companies were much lower than the "bidding standard prices" of US$842,000 to $849,000 per MW set by state electricity firm PT PLN.

The tender bids for Paiton (Jatim 2) and Suralaya (Banten 1) power plants were opened on Wednesday at PLN's headquarters in Jakarta.

Of all power plants to be built under the 10,000 MW fast-track power plant projects, only the two power plants has finished technial administrative selection stage.

The submission of price bids should have done on Oct. 30, 2006, but it was delayed twice because participants needed to recalculate the costs that must be adjusted following the government?s move to give a guarantee for the projects.

PLN?s auction committee has set the standard price of $842,000 per MW for Suralaya project and $849,000 per MW for Paiton project.

For Suralaya project, there were four bids from China National Technical Import and Export Corp (CNTIC) consortium, Marubeni-Doosan-Tripatra, Dongfang Electric-Dalle Energy and Shanghai Electric Group-Maxima Infrastruktur.

Among the consortiums, CNTIC and Dongfang had submitted the lowest price, $772, 000 per MW. Marubeni had offered $890,000 per MW and Shanghai-Maxima offered $823,000 per MW.

In case of Paiton project, there were five bidders. They are Chengda Engineering Corporation, Harbin Power Engineering, Marubeni-Doosan-Tripatra, China Huadian and Shanghai Electric.

Chengda offered the lowest price $707,000 per MW, Harbin Power $870,000, China Huadian $840,000 while Marubeni offered the highest price of $918,571 and Shanghai $906,000 per MW.

A member of coal-fired power plants (600-700 MW class) tender committee Bambang Tetuko said there is no guarantee that companies which offered lowest prices would automatically win the tender.

?As per the tender rules, PLN as the owner of these projects will determine the lowest price based on evaluation of the bids but not based on the lowest offer,? Bambang said. (godang)