T

arakan City in North Kalimantan and its environs will be free from power blackouts as of June this year at the latest, as more power will come onstream, on official says.

Tarakan Mayor Udin Hianggio revealed that additional supply will come from Adiquatro’s mini gas power plants and from a power plant owned by the Tarakan branch of state power company PT PLN which will be located in Kampung 1, near the Adiquatro plant.

The Adiquatro power plants require 3 million standard cubic feet per day of gas from state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina, Medco and Manhattan Kalimantan Investment.

An increase in gas supplies from Pertamina in the past four days has spurred target realization. The increase in gas supplies to PLN Tarakan comes from the Pertamina field in Bunyu.

“We are still waiting for Pertamina to maximize gas supplies from Bunyu. If everything runs smoothly, and gas supplies improve, we expect the power crisis to be resolved by June,” said Udin.

Efforts to resolve the power crisis in Tarakan, also include the completion of a power plant in Sungai Maya, North Tarakan, as disclosed in a meeting between the city administration, city council, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, PT PLN headquarters and other relevant institutions.

Based on a recommendation from the meeting, the stakeholders agreed to build a 4 power plant in Sungai Maya, Juata Laut, North Tarakan, starting in February at the latest.

Udin said the Sungai Maya project worth Rp 270 billion (US$28.05 million), funded by the State Budget, is expected to be completed in the next two years.

A resident of Bugis village in Tarakan, Junisah, said the power crisis disrupted her activities as the power outages occur during working hours from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.

“I’m not able to work due to the long blackouts. However, the situation in the city is quite reasonable. The blackouts only occur twice a week. But in other places, such as Kampung 1 there are blackouts almost every day. Hopefully, in June we will be free of blackouts,” said Junisah.