PLN to shut down four power plants

State electricity firm PT PLN president director Dahlan Iskan said Thursday that his company had planned to shut down four power plants this year to cut down on oil-based fuel consumption amid soaring global oil prices.

The four plants were the Tambak Lorok plant in Central Java, Muara Karang and Tanjung Priok plants in North Jakarta, and the Muara Tawar plant in Bekasi, West Java, he said.

“The planned shut down aims to reduce oil-based fuel consumptions at our power plants,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a coordination meeting at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry in Jakarta.

The company's primary energy director Nur Pamudji said earlier that last year, PLN's total oil-based fuel consumption reached  9.1 million kiloliters.

The company had actually set the consumption target at 6.4 million kiloliters in 2010, but then the calculation was revised to 9.2 million kiloliters due to a gas-supply shortage at the Muara Tawar plant, he added.