Tata, Medco on Indonesia Geothermal Plant Shortlist

Bloomberg  – Tata Power Co. and PT Medco Energi Internasional have been shortlisted by the Indonesian government to develop a 200-megawatt geothermal power project in the North Sumatra province, an energy ministry official said.

The ministry will make a decision this week, Sugiharto Harsoprayitno, geothermal director at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, said in an interview in Jakarta today.

Tata Power, India’s largest non-state generator, has teamed up with PT Supraco Indonesia to bid for the project while Medco, Indonesia’s biggest publicly traded oil company, chose Japanese trading company Itochu Corp. as its partner, he said.

The group led by Tata Power includes Australian electricity and gas retailer Origin Energy Ltd. and the project would require an investment of about 30 billion rupees ($650 million), the Economic Times newspaper reported earlier, citing S. Padmanabhan, an executive director at the Indian company. Rakesh Reddy, a Tata Power spokesman in Mumbai, declined to comment.

PT Chevron Geothermal Indonesia, unit of Chevron Corp., is interested in bidding for a 220-megawaat geothermal project in South Sumatra province, the energy ministry’s Harsoprayitno said.

The government is encouraging electricity companies including state utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara to build power plants to help meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s target of achieving an average annual economic growth rate of 6.6 percent over the remainder of his second term, which ends in July 2014.

Yudhoyono issued a decree on Jan. 8 that will allow Listrik Negara to team up with private companies to build power plants. Equipment to be used for the projects will be exempted from import duties, according to the decree.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bambang Djanuarto in Jakarta at