Austria's Elin set to expand in RI

PAITON, East Java (JP): Austrian power plant equipment maker Elin Energieversorgung GmbH will open several manufacturing plants in Indonesia.

Elin's Southeast Asia account manager, Rudolf Kirchmayer, said over the weekend the company would set up a joint venture with Indonesia's Austrodwipa Priamanaya, to make a 150 kilovolt gas insulated switchgear (GIS) -- a special inhouse substation which distributes power.

He said the joint venture would build the US$30 million GIS manufacturing plant near Jakarta in 1998.

"The negotiations between both companies are underway," he said.

Elin and Austrodwipa will invest $10 million on remote terminal units -- which control the operation of power substations -- in Jakarta.

"We have signed the joint venture agreement and will start construction later this year," he said.

Elin was also negotiating with state-owned engineering company PT Boma Bisma Indra to set up a joint venture to make hydropower generators worth $67 million in Surabaya, East Java, he said.

Kirchmayer said demand for power plant equipment in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, would grow considerably as the region industrialized.

Elin wanted to make Indonesia its manufacturing basis for Southeast Asia when the region become a free trade area in 2003, he said.

"We choose Indonesia (as manufacturing basis) because of its lower labor costs," he said.

Elin, a subsidiary of Austria's biggest technology firm VA Technologie AG, makes generators, transformers, control systems and transmission lines.

It began operating in Indonesia in the early 1980s and has set up a joint venture with Austrodwipa, PT Elin Indonesia, as a consultant to power plant owners and operators.

Kirchmayer said Elin's hydropower generators and high-voltage transformers were the market leaders in Indonesia.

Elin generators are used at hydropower plants in Cirata, West Java; Kotapanjang, Riau; Singkarak, West Sumatra; Renun, North Sumatra; Soroako, South Sulawesi, which is owned by nickel miner PT Inco; and in Cikarang, owned by PT Cikarang Listrindo.

Elin has installed about 50 high-voltage transformers in Indonesia. (jsk)