PLN re-auctions North Sumatra's Sarulla power project

State owned electricity company PLN would relaunch Wednesday the auction for North Sumatra's Sarulla geothermal power project to determine which of the two qualified bidders, Medco Energi and Geo Dipa, are eligible to construct and develop the project, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Tuesday.

PLN's director for power generation and prime energy Herman Ibrahim said in Medan on Monday that the Sarulla geothermal power project had to be re-tendered because the bids provided by Medco and Geop Dipa, which were short-listed from the pre-qualification tender early last year, were still far higher than PLN's standards.

He said that the selling prices required by the two companies in the previous tender were still far higher than PLN's standard of US$0.048 per KwH. "PLN will appoint either Medo and Geo Dipo to build and operate the Sarulla geothermal power plant, depending on their latest bids," he was quoted as saying.

The geothermal project, first developed by Unocal, will have the capacity to produce 330 MW. PLN re-tendered the project in October last year after Unocal quit the project. (*)