Medco drills geothermal wells

JAKARTA (JP): The president of PT Meta Epsi Antareja Drilling Co., a subsidiary of PT Medco Energy Corporation, announced over the weekend that his company is drilling the eighth geothermal well for a power plant in Pangalengan, West Java.

The company's president, Hertriono Kartowisastro, said the contract was only for drilling the wells not for their development.

"In the first stage, we'll drill 12 wells that will be able to support a power plant with a generation capacity of 110 megawatts (MW)," the daily Bisnis Indonesia quoted him yesterday as saying in Bandung.

According to Hertriono, the geothermal power plant would have a total generation capacity of 310 MW and be operated by PT Mandala Nusantara, a subsidiary of the Humpuss Group, which is owned by President Soeharto's youngest son Hutama (Tommy) Mandala Putra.

Hertriono would not reveal the value of the contract. But PT Meta Epsi's general manager, Askar Kartiwa, said that, based on his company's experience, the drilling cost of a well between 2,200 and 4,400 meters deep was about Rp 1 billion (US$432,900). (13)