Govt terminates five geothermal contracts
Wednesday, August 10 2016 - 02:10 AM WIB
The government has terminated five geothermal project contracts so far this year as the developers have failed to fulfill their financial obligation to the state and to carryout planned development of the geothermal working areas as stipulated under the contract.
?The majority of the developers didn?t pay the exploration fees,? said Director of Geothermal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Yunus Saefulhak on Tuesday.
He added that many of the developers, despite repeated warnings from the government, have failed to implement the required development activities in their respective geothermal working areas.
"In the contract it is stated that the developer should conduct the minimum exploration, geological 3G surveillance, developing the infrastructures suchas road for the access of the drilling activity, but in fact there has been no significant development. The time frame of the development has not been properly fulfilled, that is why we terminated the contracts," Yunus explained.
He revealed that among of the five geothermal concession contracts which have been terminated include WKP (geothermal working area) Atadei (30 MW) in Lembata Regency, East Nusa Tenggara; WKP Huu Daha in Dompu Regency, West Nusa Tenggara; and WKP Ciater in Tangkuban Parahu, West Java, which belongs to PT Wahana Sembada Sakti.
Yunus added that currently the ministry is evaluating four other WKPs for possible termination due to similar problem. "But for these four WKPs we are still giving them chance," he said.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak