Govt team completes study over Karaha Bodas power project
Wednesday, February 19 2003 - 06:27 AM WIB
The team had founded that proven geothermal energy resources on the project site, located in West Java?s Karaha Bodas village, had capacity to generate 30 megawatts (MW) of electricity, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti said in a hearing with House Commission VIII in charge of energy and mineral resources.
Meanwhile, probable geothermal resources in the project site could generate 120 MW of electricity, Dorodjatun said quoting the results of the team?s study.
The minister said that, according to study results, more geothermal resources could be found in Karaha Bodas, and that they were enough to generate 200 MW of electricity.
The Karaha Bodas project was among the 27 privately owned power projects suspended by the government in 1998 after Indonesia was hit by severe economic crisis.
In 1994, KBC assigned contracts with Indonesia?s state oil and gas firm Pertamina and state electricity firm PLN to develop the Karaha Bodas project to produce 220 megawatts of electricity.
In 2000, an arbitration court in Switzerland ordered Pertamina to pay US$261 million to KBC as compensation for costs incurred and loss of earnings due to the project cancellation.
However, a Jakarta district court overturned the ruling of the Swiss arbitration, a move not effective enough to prevent a U.S. court from allowing KBC to freeze Pertamina assets worth $275 million. In June last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the U.S. court decision, causing the issue deadlocked ever since.
Dorodjatun said Wednesday the U.S. government had proposed that KBC and Pertamina seek an out of court settlement.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell last week sent a letter to President Megawati Soekarnoputri saying that he was willing to facilitate out of court settlement over the Karaha Bodas dispute. (godang)