Three consortiums submit bids to build Muara Tawar power plant

Three consortiums including multinational corporations are competing to win contract to build Muara Tawar gas power plant in West Java, Bisnis Indonesia daily reported Monday.

The secretary of state electricity firm PT PLN, Muljo Adji AG, was quoted as saying that the consortiums, each led by an Indonesian company, had submitted their offer for the contract by the Feb 21 deadline.

?We are now evaluating the contents of their offer. The evaluation focuses on the price of electricity offered,? Muljo said Sunday.

Muljo said that PT Matlamat Cakra Canggih led the first consortium with Marubeni Corp. (Japan), Alstom Power Esi and Alstom Switzerland Ltd (Switzerland) as consortium members.

State owned engineering contractors PT Rekayasa Industri led the second consortium, which had Imeco Inter Sarana and Sumitomo Corp (Japan) as members.

Meanwhile, the third one covered PT Balfour Beatty Sakti, Siemens (Germany) and Samsung (South Korea).

Muljo said tender winner(s) could be announced before March 31, 2003 as initially planned because the consortiums were the only parties submitting their offer for the Muara Tawar power project contract.

He said however he had no idea when the project contract would be signed, while Minister of energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said recently it could be signed on April 15. If this happens, unit I of the plant could start operation in April 2004, according to the minister.

The power project, planned to have capacity of 6 x 100 megawatts, will be located in Bekasi, West Java.

It is part of PLN?s priority program to cope with electricity supply shortage in Java and Bali. (*)