PLN revives plan build Pasuruan 500-MW gas-fired power plant

State electricity firm PT. PLN would soon open tender to build 1x500 MW of combined cycle power plant in Pasuruan, East Java as part of its effort to meet electricity demand in Java Island, a PLN official said on Monday.

?PLN is currently negotiating gas supply with Husky, the operator of Madura BD gas field. We hope to be able to open tender within the next two or three months,? said PLN director Ali Herman Ibrahim.

He said that the power plant would be built base on IPP system, which means that PLN would buy electricity generated on certain price and certain period of time. He expected the plant would be able to enter Java-Bali electricity system by 2009.

The Pasuruan plant is to revive the 1990s plan when the disgraced US energy trader Enron through its 51 percent subsidiary PT East Java Power Corp (EJPC) planned to build a 500-megawatt power plant. The power plant was originally scheduled to operate in 1998.

Enron?s partners in EJPC included Bambang Trihatmodjo, son of the-then president Soeharto and his crony Ibrahim Risjad. By 1997 the Indonesian economy collapsed and Soeharto was overthrown. The resulting economic mess forced Indonesia to default on its payments for the Enron power plants.

The Enron power project was suspended indefinitely in September 1997. (godang)