PLN appoints IP to deal with Jawa 5 project

JAKARTA. State Electricity Company (PT. PLN) finally appointed PT. Indonesia Power (IP) to work on Electric Steam Power Plant (PLTU) with capacity of 2,000 megawatt (MW) in Serang, Banten. With the appointment, IP has authority to appoint contractor company that will work on engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) of the IDR 30 trillion worth of project.

However, PLN can not ensure that the Jawa 5 project will be accomplished on time in 2019, since normally the similar project takes four years to be accomplished. The accomplishment also depends on the ability of the contractor.

“We can start commercial operation date (COD) in 2019. However, it depends on  which contractor company that will work on the project, either from China or Japan said Sofyan Bashir on Thursday (1/9). Based on experience, a Japanese contractor company accomplishes similar project within four years.

Sofyan admitted that they will seek loans to fund the IDR 30 trillion worth of project. However, Sofyan declined to explain the reason behind the appointment of PJB. According to Kontan record, PJB joined the tender process that was carried by PLN. At that time, PJB built consortium with China Oceanwide and Shanghai Electric as the minority stakeholders. However, PLN later annulled the tender process.

Investors Disappointed

The PLN decission that appointed PJB to work on Jawa 5 project has confused companies that have joined the tender process. Executive Director of Indonesia-China Corporatif Investment said that the direct appointment shows PLN inconsistency.

He added that PLN was actually not serious in conducting the tender, on the grounds that PLN annulled the ongoing process, which involved independent power producer as one of the participants, and directly appointed its subsidiary instead. (Translator: Muhammad Farid)