PGE postpones drilling of two exploration wells in Kamojang
Friday, July 28 2017 - 07:59 AM WIB
Petromindo|Khalsa
PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE), a subsidiary of state-owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina (Persero), has postponed drilling plan at two exploration wells in the PLTP Kamojang geothermal power plant project in Kamojang, Bandung Regency, West Java, to next year.
PGE initially planned to drill the wells in the third quarter of this year.
?Drilling at two exploration wells in Kamojang which was supposed to be carried out at the end of this year is postponed to next year. The reason is because of the operational strategy, so we will optimize the existing ones,? said PGE Corporate Secretary Tafif Azamudin to Petromindo.com on Friday.
President Director of PGE Irfan Zaenuddin confirmed that for this year there is no exploration drilling in Kamojang.
"There are candidates for exploration wells in Kamojang geothermal area, but now we are still waiting for the process of changing the status of conservation forest in that location," Irfan said.
He hopes that approval from the Minister of Environment and Forestry can be issued soon.
Faiq Kautsar, Maintenance Manager at PGE Kamojang Area, said earlier that the two wells are expected to have production capacity of around 20 MW, or about 10 percent of the PLTP Kamojang current total capacity of 205 MW. He added that the company has set up plan to drill new geothermal wells in every three-year to anticipate natural declining production of the aging geothermal wells.
The plan to drill two new geothermal wells comes as the unit I of the PLTP Kamojang (with capacity of 30MW) will resume operation in October this year after having been shut down since April 2014.
In early January, Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arcanda Tahar hoped the PLTP Kamojang unit I could quickly resume operation. He said that the suspension of the 30 MW PLTP Kamojang unit 1 due to breakdown of its turbine was lamentable as existing supply of the geothermal steam could not be utilized optimally at a time when the government is pushing for the utilization of the abundant supply ofrenewable energy sources in the country.
PT PGE Area Kamojang supplies geothermal steam to five Kamojang geothermal power plants including unit 1, 2,3, 4, and 5 with combined capacity of 235 MW. The suspension of the unit I has forced the Kamojang plants to only produce 205 MW of electricity. Unit 1-3 are operated by PLN?s subsidiary PT Indonesia Power, while unit 3 and 4 areoperated by PGE Area Kamojang.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak