PT Berau Coal gets $1.5 million contract

PT Berau Coal gets $1.5 million contract

JAKARTA (JP): PT Berau Coal has secured a 30-year contract worth US$1.5 billion to supply two million tons of coal per year to PT Jawa Power's Paiton power plant in East Java, the coal mining company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Berau, controlled by United Tractor, a member of the Astra International Group, and Nissho Iwai of Japan, said the coal will be supplied from its Lati and Binungan mines in East Kalimantan.

Berau, which currently produces one million tons at its Lati mine, will expand its mining capacity to five million tons per year in 1999 by developing a new mine at Binungan near Lati.

Jawa Power, which is 50 percent owned by Siemens of Germany, 35 percent by PowerGen of Britain and 15 percent by Bumipertiwi Tatapradipta, a subsidiary of the Bimantara group, will construct a 1,220-megawatt power plant at Paiton, East Java.

Jawa Power, the second private company to build a coal-fired power station at Paiton, has concluded a 30-year electricity power sales contract with the State Electricity Company (PLN).

The Jawa Power plant is scheduled to come on stream in 1999 and will be operated by the private company for 30 years, after which the power station will be transferred to PLN.

PT Paiton Energy Company, a joint venture of Mission Energy of the United States, Mitsui & Co of Japan, General Electric Capital Corp. of the United States and PT Batu Hitam Perkasa of Indonesia, is building another plant with a generation capacity of 1,230 megawatts at Paiton at a cost of $2.5 billion. (04)