Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg
KUCHING: The state government will not sell electricity from Bakun dam to Peninsular Malaysia, said Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg.
He said he had decided that the electricity from Bakun be used for the state and partly sold to West Kalimantan as what was being done at present.
“As far as the energy (from Bakun) is concerned, I have decided that we want to consume it (the energy) for our own, and perhaps we just want to sell it to our neighbour, like what we are doing now – selling it to Pontianak in West Kalimantan.
“The state government will not sell the electricity power to Peninsular Malaysia because laying undersea cable will be very costly and the other problem is leakage,” he told a press conference yesterday.
The press conference was to announce the temporary closure of the old Sarawak Museum to the public from this Oct 23 until early 2020, to pave way for Phase II of the Sarawak Museum campus and heritage trail project costing RM38 million.
Abang Johari added that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had been invited to officially hand over Bakun dam to the state government, and the state government would be looking for a new general manager for the dam. He did not mention the date for the official handing-over ceremony.
Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) group chief executive officer Sharbini Suhaili in an interview with financial weekly The Edge on Sept 18 had said that SEB currently supplied 150MW of electricity to Indonesia via a power exchange agreement and it expected to increase the supply to 230MW by end of next year.
He also revealed that SEB was talking to Sabah who wanted 50MW for a start.
SEB completed its acquisition of Bakun’s holding company Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd from Ministry of Finance for RM2.5 billion cash, plus a debt assumption of RM5.6 billion, in August.