More coal-fired power plants under fast-track program to be retendered

Three coal-fired power plants to be built under the government?s fast track program to provide additional supply of 10,000 MW should be retendered because all bidders participating in the auction did not pass the technical evaluation, an official has said.

The three coal-fired power plants are coal-fired power plant?s Banten 2, coal-fired power plant 1 West Java and coal-fired power plant 3 East Java.

The retender of the three power plants is scheduled for the middle of December.

Of the 10 coal-fired power plants on offer, seven will be retendered.

Head of the Fast Track Program Team Yogo Pratomo said in Jakarta that despite being retendered, the three plants are expected to start operation in 2009 as earlier scheduled, Kompas reported Saturday.

Meanwhile, State electricity PT PLN was scheduled to announce the result of the tender of coal-fired power plant Suralaya and coal-fired power plant Paiton but was delayed because a component of coal pricing needed to be adjusted to the pricing offered by the contractor.

?The contract price of coal used to fire power plant is inclined to go up. This should be taken into consideration in setting the price,? said head of the Auction Team for the 600 MW-700 MW class coal-fired power plants Chairuddin Matondang.

The coal contract price is set at above the previously proposed US$30.

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.

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. (*)