PLN seeks extra state funds
Friday, July 24 2015 - 02:34 AM WIB
The fresh funds will add to the Rp 5 trillion stimulus it obtained under a similar scheme approved by the House of Representatives earlier this year.
The paper quoted PLN President Director Sofyan Basir as saying that the second round of capital injection could further strengthen the company?s equity and the value of the initial injection.
?As much as Rp 15 trillion of our profit and [an additional] Rp 8 trillion of the PMN will contribute to equity,? he told reporters Wednesday.
PLN pocketed Rp 11.7 trillion in net profit last year after suffering a Rp 30.9 trillion net loss in 2013.
The company hopes to reap Rp 16.3 trillion in profit and book 218.8 terawatt hours (TWh) in electricity sales this year, up 10 percent from 198.6 TWh seen last year.
Sofyan also expected that the government would soon disburse a PNM allocation to PLN for 2015 to help the company meet its equity target of around Rp 21 trillion for the power plant project funding.
PLN may to contribute Rp 60 trillion, or approximately 30 percent, to the overall investment for construction of the 10,000 MW power plants and their supporting infrastructure that amounts to Rp 200 trillion, while it expects the remainder coming from private investors.
The company?s equity, however, will make up only 30 percent of its contribution while loans are anticipated to meet the majority of the rest.
On this issue, Sofyan revealed that PLN had secured loans from various foreign lenders and development banks.
?The loans vary in volume from $1 million to $3 million, while the tenures are between 10 and 30 years,? he said.
Earlier this year, the firm said that it had already obtained credit totaling Rp 50 trillion from five foreign lenders, namely the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the French Development Agency (AFD) and the German Development Bank (KfW).
PLN director Murtaqi Syamsuddin recently said that PLN preferred long-term and low-interest rate funding provided by development banks to finance its projects in spite of availability of other options, such as obligation issuance and syndicated loans from national banks.
PLN seeks financial closure at the end of this year, or early next year, and hopes to construct the power plants in the next three years to enable their operation by 2019, Sofyan said.
The 10,000 MW project by PLN is a part of the government?s massive program to develop 35,000 MW of electricity capacity by 2019 which will give aboostto the existing 53,000 MW The remaining 25,000 MW will be supplied by assorted independent power producers (IPPs). (*)