Apac to build power plant to cut production costs
Apac to build power plant to cut production costs
JAKARTA (JP): Publicly-listed PT Apac Centertex Corp., a
garment producer, plans to build a 100 megawatt (MW) cogeneration
power plant in Bawen, Central Java, soon to reduce its production
costs.
"By building our own power plant, we'll be able to generate
cheaper electricity and at the same time produce steam for our
textile plants," company president Benny Soetrisno said
yesterday.
Apac signed an agreement yesterday with East Asia Power
Resources Co. of the Philippines and PT Super Indah Makmur to
develop the US$100 million power plant.
He said Apac and the two companies had set up an equally-owned
venture, PT Vita Daya Harapan, to own the power plant.
He said PT Vita Daya Harapan would build the cogeneration
power plant under a 20-year build, operate and transfer scheme
with PT Apac. The plant will burn gas from Shell Mulia on the
northern coast of Central Java.
The power station will initially have an installed capacity of
50 MW but this will double in 1999, he said.
"Currently, we need between 40 MW and 50 MW, our power demand
will increase to about 70 MW. So we'll have a reserve of about 30
MW," he said.
The $100 million investment will be 75 percent funded by a
syndicated loan from foreign and local banks and 25 percent by
equity funds.
He said the electricity would be sold to PT Apac for $0.06 per
kilowatt hour (kWh), while the steam, which is now produced by
burning oil, would cut about $12 an hour off operation costs.
"The power plant will produce about 25 tons of steam an hour,"
he said.
He was confident the cost savings would help PT Apac, which
suffered a Rp 2.93 billion ($1.3 million) operating loss last
year.
PT Apac Centertex received Rp 408 billion in fresh funds from
its rights issue in July. The company acquired a 94.12 percent of
PT Apac Inti Corpora in August.
PT Apac Centertex is controlled by Johannes B. Kotjo and
Bambang Trihatmodjo, the second son of President Soeharto. PT
Super Indah Makmur, a packaging subsidiary of engineering company
Van der Host, is owned by Johannes B. Kotjo. (bnt)