Wärtsilä, a flexible power supplier for the decentralised power generation market, has signed a €57 million contract to supply a barge-mounted power plant to serve a mining operation in Papua New Guinea.
Wärtsilä is based in Helsinki, Finland and operates an Australian business in Huntingwood, Sydney.
The power plant will provide electricity to the Lihir Island gold mine and is scheduled to be fully-operational by April 2011.
The barge-mounted plant will be based on Wärtsilä 20V32 engines operating on heavy fuel oil.
Since the plant is planned as an interim solution to the company’s power needs for the site, it was the power plant will be mounted on a barge so that it can be later moved to another location when no longer needed at Lihir Island.
According to Wärtsilä, the local flexibility of a barge-mounted power plant solution makes it ideal for producing power on an interim basis.
Wärtsilä has already supplied some 20 similar power barges to the Philippines, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Bangladesh.
According to Wärtsilä Australia managing director, John Sydney, the complexity and size of the project presented “no engineering problems for the company at all, showing the vast capabilities of Wärtsilä and its multitude of highly-trained staff.”