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Company commits to no more oil leaks

PT Indonesia Power guaranteed Monday there would be no more oil leaks from its pipes and pledged to replant mangroves around Benoa Bay following late January’s leak that killed dozens of plants

Wasti Atmodjo (The Jakarta Post)
Denpasar
Wed, March 12, 2014

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Company commits to no more oil leaks

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T Indonesia Power guaranteed Monday there would be no more oil leaks from its pipes and pledged to replant mangroves around Benoa Bay following late January'€™s leak that killed dozens of plants.

More than 400 liters of marine fuel oil and high-speed diesel on Jan. 25 leaked for two hours from one of the company'€™s pipes, which is part of the company'€™s electricity generation system on the island, polluting at least 5,000 square meters of the surrounding waters.

The company said that the leak had initially been undetected '€œdue to the pipe'€™s hidden location'€, which is under a bridge close to Denpasar tollgate.

Indonesia Power is a subsidiary of state electricity company PT PLN. It operates eight electricity generating business units in the country, including in Bali.

Subawa Putra, the company'€™s general manager in Bali, acknowledged that the incident had damaged the ecosystem and hoped it would be '€œthe first and the last'€ time.

Subawa said that his team had taken care of the issue immediately after it was discovered, including spraying dispersants to avoid further contamination.

'€œWe acknowledge that the blackening of the mangrove trees was due to the leak. But upon scrutiny, we found that only 30 trees were dying, although we weren'€™t allowed to cut them down as they had a chance of surviving,'€ Subawa told a press conference on Monday.

He said the company had spoken with Benoa Port management and mangrove activists to take further measures.

Subawa explained that oil distribution from tanker ships at Benoa Port made use of three stainless steel pipes. The pipe that leaked was installed in 1994, while the other two were installed in 2006 and 2010 respectively. '€œWe no longer use the older installation. The other two are in good condition.'€

Bali'€™s Indonesia Power manages three plants on the island: Pesanggaran diesel-powered plant (PLTD) in Denpasar, Gilimanuk gas-powered plant (PLTG) in Jembrana and Pemaron PLTD and PLTG in Buleleng.

To run the three plants, the company requires more than 2.5 million liters of diesel fuel per day. Each of the plants can stock fuel for up to seven days of operation. Subawa expressed hopes that the diesel would be replaced with gas to avoid similar incidents.

PLN Bali spokesman I Wayan Redika said that his side supplied 850 megawatts (MW) of power to the island'€™s grid generated from plants in the province, with additional supplies from Java delivered through two submarine cables.

However, the supplies between Feb. 12 and April 2 would be reduced by 130 MW as Gilimanuk PLTG was undergoing maintenance, thus was excluded from the grid. '€œThe process is 80 percent complete. We hope to finish early,'€ said Redika.

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