PLN TO CALL TENDER FOR THREE MILLION TONS OF COAL

Jakarta, March 2 (ANTARA) - State electricity company PT PLN will call a tender soon to procure three million tons of coal to fuel power plants it is building under the government's 10,000-MW capacity development program, a spokesman said.
The tender would be held in the third week of March 2009, Nasri Sebayang, the head of PT PLN's primary energy affairs, said here Monday.
PLN would use the coal to meet the fuel needs of six power plants which were built outside Java under the 10,000-MW capacity development program, he said.
"We still need to put to tender the procurement of three million more tons of coal to meet the needs of the 10,000-MW capacity projects. We plan to announce it in the third week of March," he said.
He said the tender would be the last to be held for the procurement of coal in connection with the government's program to build power plants with a combined capacity of 10,000 MW.
Ten of the power plants would be located in Java and 25 in other parts of the Indonesian archipelago.
To meet the fuel needs of all the 35 power plants, PLN would have to procure at least 33 million tons of coal. ***