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Sarulla project progressing with first phase to be operational by mid-2016

Sarulla project progressing with first phase to be operational by mid-2016 Drilling rig at Sarulla project, Indonesia (source: Sarulla Operations)
Alexander Richter 25 Nov 2015

The Sarulla geothermal project is progressing nicely with drilling under way and the first phase of 110 MW expected to be operational by mid-2016.

In an update provided to Engineering News-Record, a current report on the activities for the Sarulla Geothermal Project in Indonesia is given with a lot of good background information.

Developed in three stages of each 110 MW, the developer expects the first phase to be completed by mid-2016.

It is expected that 30 wells need to be drilled in total. 13 wells were already drilled by previous developers are are sufficient for the first phase of development.

The project has around 1,000 people working during the construction phase on infrastructure and drilling, with some scarcity of specialists particularly drillers.

Pertamina Geothermal Energy holds the concession and provides the right of use to the geothermal field with PLN as off-taker for a period of 30 years. The consortium partners Medco Power Indonesia (37.5%), Itochu Corp. (25%), Kyushu Electric Power Co. (25%) and Ormat International (12.5%) will jointly own and operate the plant.

The project will have an installed capacity of 330 MW when completed in 2018 with an overall investment volume of $1.5 billion. The EPC contractor for the project is Hyundai, drilling contractor is Halliburton. The turbines will be provided by Toshiba with Ormat providing energy converters to the three plants.

The Sarulla project was initially a project by Unocal, with PNC taking over the company’s interest in 2006, when the consortium of Medco, Ormat and Itochu won the tender for the development of the project. It has been idle for 23 years since it picked up development again in 2013.

Source: Engineering News-Record