PGE to drill two exploration wells in Kamojang in Q3

By Febry Silaban

Courtesy of PGE

PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE), a subsidiary of state-owned oil and gascompany PT Pertamina, plans to drill two exploration wells to increase steam supply to the PLTP Kamojang geothermal power plant in Kamojang, Bandung Regency, West Java, in the third quarter of this year, according to a top official of the firm.

?Drilling of two exploration wells in Kamojang is scheduled around September or October this year,? President Director of PGE Irfan Zaenuddin said to Petromindo.com Wednesday.

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.

Early January, Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arcanda Tahar said the PLTP Kamojang unit I to be able to resume operation soon. 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.

?PLN should have responded quickly to fix the problem because the breakdown has been for a year,? he said.The PLTP Kamojang unit 1 stopped operation due to breakdown of its 32-year old turbine. Lifetime of the turbine is designed for an average of 30 years.

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