Kimanis power plant on track for operation

Kimanis power plant, a 300-megawatt (MW)combined cycle gas turbine power plant in Papar, Sabah, is on course for
commissioning by June next year, Petronas Gas Bhd chief executive officer and managing director Yusa Hassan said.

He said the pre-commissioning activities at the RM1.5 billion gas-fired power plant had started and is currently in the process of completing the testing stages after the transmission lines have been commissioned.

"The testing will take about five to six months before we commercialise the power plant by May or June next year, if everything goes well," he told Bernama in an interview today.

Kimanis Power Sdn Bhd, the owner and operator of Kimanis power plant, is a 60:40 joint-venture between Petronas Gas and NRG Consortium (Sabah) Sdn Bhd, the business arm of Yayasan Sabah Group, respectively.

Yusa said the company would commission the plant, which consists of three generating blocks with each generating 100MW of power, block by block.

He said the company should be able to generate all 300MW by the end of this year, but this would depend on the transmission lines.

"At the moment the transmission line is only able to cater for about 100MW.

"Once the 300MW transmission lines are ready, then we are ready to basically commercialise all this 300MW of power to Sabah," he said.

Yusa also said that gas pipeline from Sabah to Sarawak would be commissioned in due course.

Meanwhile, he said the gas industry outlook, to some extend, was similar to the demand for oil.

"We are actually fortunate that Malaysia is one of the main exporters of natural gas.

"The main consumer of natural gas actually is North Asian countries due to lack of gas resources," Yusa