Pertamina seeks strategic partners to take over Wayang Windu

State oil and gas company Pertamina is seeking strategic investors to take over the West Java-based geothermal power plant Wayang Windu after the negotiations with the present owner and financiers failed, Koran Tempo reported on Monday.

Pertamina's director for downstream operation Bambang Nugroho said in Jakarta the state oil and gas company was currently drafting the requirements that should be met by investors to become its strategic investors.

"We still have two months to form an alliance with strategic investors to take over the geothermal power plant," he said. He, however, refused to unveil potential candidates to join the alliance.

According to him, Pertamina and its strategic investors will take a new approach in taking over the geothermal power plant from its current developer Magma Nusantara Limited which is jointly owned by Unocal Corp (50 percent) and a consortium of banks comprising of Deutsche Bank and Credit Swiss First Boston (each with 25 percent ownership).

Bambang said the consortium of the two banks offered a price tag of US$250 million for the geothermal plant but Pertamina considered the offer was still too expensive

The construction of the Wayang Windu power plant, which has a capacity of 2 x 110 MW, began in 1994, with total investment of US$434 million. One of the power generators had been completed.

The geothermal power project, one of the world's environmentally friendly power plants, will receive grant of US$250 million from the Netherlands-based Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for the use of the environmentally friendly technology. (*)