Indonesian Ministry of Mines and Energy is to announce the winners of bid for two steam-powered electric generator projects in Suralaya of Banten province and Paiton of East Java province next week, an official of the ministry said in Jakarta on Thursday.

The four bidders of the projects involve three companies from China and one from Japan, according to the ministry.

Yogo Pratomo, the ministry's coordinator for the acceleration of the projects building, said that now the ministry was evaluating the price on the bid.

"The winners will be announced next week," he told reporters after meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla at his office here.

The project with each capacity of 600 mega watts is part of the government's plan to establish 10,000 mega watts power plants, which will be complete within three years, Indonesian Minister of Mines and Energy Purnomo Yusgiantoro has said.

The vice president quoted by Pratomo as saying that the projects aims to reduce the country's dependency on fuel.

Indonesia will reduce the use of fuel oil to generate power from 30 percent at this time to 5 percent in 2009.

The country has a huge supply of coal but its oil production has been declined due to aging of some oil wells and the slow of finding new well.

Indonesia's power plants have total capacity of 25,000 mega watts, but the demand grow by 6 to 7 percent or 2,000 to 3,000 mega watts annually, according to the minister.

Source: Xinhua