PLN wants ConocoPhillips to lower gas price

State owned electricity company PLN has asked ConocoPhillips to lower the price of gas it intends to sell to PLN’s Muara Tawar and Muara Karang power plants in West Java from the offered price of US$2.67 per million british termal unit (mmbtu), Suara Karya reported on Thursday.

PLN’s director for power generation and primary energy Ali Herman Ibrahim said in Jakarta on Wednesday that PLN and ConocoPhillips were still negotiating the ideal price of the gas to be supplied to the two power plants.

“ConocoPhillips’ offered price of US$2.67 per mmbtu is still too high. That’s why PLN has asked the American company to lower it,” he was quoted as saying by the daily. Herman said that the ideal price should be about US$2.65 per mmbtu.

ConocoPhillips has agreed to supply gas between 300 and 400 million cubic feet per day to PLN’s power plants for 17 years beginning in 2007. The gas will be supplied from the company’s Corridor gas field in Jambi through a pipeline.(*)