PLN to build gas power plants in Aceh and North Sumatra

By Bernard Loebs

State owned electricity firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) plans to build two gas-fired power plants in Aceh and North Sumatra respectively to strengthen power supplies in both provinces, a senior official of the state firm said on Thursday.

Nasri Sebayang, Construction Director of PLN, told Petromindo.com that both power plants, each with the capacity of 200 MW, were designed to burden the peak load of power distribution in both provinces.

?We are now in the phase of preparing bid documents for the construction of the power plants,? he said.

PLTG Arun will have two options of gas supplies: Either the gas will be supplied from the planned Arun LNG receiving terminal or through a swap deal with the Tangguh LNG plant in West Papua, according to Nasri.

The Arun LNG plant is still producing LNG but several years from now the gas reserve of the Arun field which now supplies gas to the LNG plant will much be depleted that there won?t be enough gas left for the plant to continue LNG production, but the field will have still enough reserve to supply a power plant. State owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina has thus planned to convert the plant into an LNG receiving terminal with the target market being gas consumers, particularly power plants, in Aceh and neighboring province North Sumatra. The gas will be supplied through a pipeline to be built by Pertamina from Aceh to North Sumatra.

The plan puts Pertamina in a head-to-head competition with state owned gas distributor PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN) which has prepared to build a Floating Storage and Regassification Unit (FSRU) offshore North Sumatra to supply gas to the power plant owned by PLN in North Sumatra?s seaport town of Belawan. Some governmental officials have called on PGN to cancel the FSRU project, paving the way for Pertamina to supply gas to North Sumatra from Arun. PGN has been urged to relocate the FSRU project to Sunda Strait, near Lampung. However, it remains unclear if the government has officially issued an order for PGN to cancel the Belawan FSRU project.

Nasri said it is not clear yet who will supply gas to PLTG Belawan that PLN is going to build.

?For the moment, PLN assumes that gas for PLTG Belawan will be supplied from the (planned) Arun LNG terminal because we have heard that the Belawan FSRU project will be relocated to Lampung,? Nasri said.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon