PLN expects income to increase 25 percent this year
Power shortage to continue this year
Wednesday, January 2 2008 - 03:34 AM WIB
PLN?s President Director Eddie Widiono said on Monday power sales were expected to contribute 53 percent or Rp 78.97 trillion to the total income, while the rest will be provided by the government as subsidy.
He said operating costs were also projected to increase to Rp 139 trillion next year, from Rp 110 trillion last year.
PLN?s income and operating costs stood at Rp 115 trillion and Rp 107 trillion in 2006.
Of the Rp 139 trillion expenditure budget allocated for 2008, the firm will spend Rp 83.4 trillion to purchase fuel. Of the amount, Rp 65.05 trillion will be spent to purchase oil fuel, according to Eddie.
Eddie was also quoted by Bisnis Indonesia as saying that power shortage would continue this year due to several factors, including that a small amount of new power supplies would come on stream this year and several power plants would be suspended for maintenance.
The government has launched a fast track program to increase the national power generation capacity by 10,000 MW, but none of the power projects under the program would come on stream this year.
Only one power generation unit, that is the Unit 4 of the Kamojang geothermal power plant with the capacity of 60 megawatt will come on stream this year.
PLN will also overhaul several power plants this year ahead of the initial schedule of 2009 to ensure security of power supplies during the general elections in 2009.
Eddie voiced concerns over the government?s 2008 state budget that only provides subsidy for PLN to consume 9.1 million kilo liters of oil fuel this year, rather than 10.6 million kilo liters as proposed by the company.
?PLN?s power plants that use gas and coal as fuel are facing difficulties due to the decrease in the supplies of the fuel. This situation forces us to use oil fuel. Unfortunately, the quota set by the government is lower than the figures we proposed,? Eddie said. (*)