Padang production halted due to electricity supply

Padang production halted due to electricity supply
02 October 2009


Production activities of PT Semen Padang, a subsidiary of publicly listed PT Semen Gresik Tbk (Semen Gresik Group/ SGG), have been paralysed since Wednesday night, September 30, following a 7.6 Richter Scale (RS) earthquake.

The tremendous earthquake forces the local state electricity company PLN to cut electricity supply to Semen Padang’s cement factory. Without sufficient electricity, the cement factory cannot operate.

Director General of Agro and Chemical Industry at the Department of Industry Benny Wachjudi explained to produce 5.4Mta of cement, Semen Padang needed an electricity supply of 100-120MW. The company’s daily production capacity alone is 17,400t.

All this time, he informed, Semen Padang had no power plants, leaving PLN to cater to the cement factory’s electricity need 100%. Such a dependence on PLN’s electricity resulted in injuries to the company during a force majeur situation.

"I heard PLN is committed to supplying electricity within no sooner than 7 days since yesterday night [September 30]. Starting yesterday, we have run routine check on all facilities of the factory. Added by the time needed for maintenance, Semen Padang will only start operation around 10 days from now [yesterday]," Benny confirmed yesterday.

Head of Department of Marketing and Development Planning at Semen Padang Pujo Suseno disclosed Semen Padang factories, covering Indarung I through V, were designed to contain up to a 10 Richter-scale earthquake.

However, the earthquake several days ago had damaged the conveyor belt facility, which was buried by the landslide.

"Damages in the facility will interrupt production process in the kiln. In addition, the server in the computer system and the communication system are also disrupted."

The government, added Benny, hoped the company’s production would not be interrupted more than a month. Otherwise, cement supply to Sumatra might be disrupted since the cement stock in Sumatra at the moment was only sufficient for around a month.

Source: Bisnis Indonesia

Published under Cement News