October 21 (SeeNews) - North Macedonia's state-owned electricity producer ESM said on Thursday that it has received 13 offers for coal supply from nine local and foreign companies as part of the country's plan to beat the current rise in energy prices by increasing power output from coal.
ESM received offers from three local mines, as well as mines from Albania, Kosovo, Russia, Turkey and Bosnia, it said in a statement.
The electricity producer received five offers for coal deliveries to REK Bitola thermal power plant (TPP) and eight offers for REK Oslomej TPP.
ESM added that it will soon relaunch the tender for REK Bitola as none of the bidders has offered the required quantity of coal.
The offers for REK Oslomej meet the requirements for the needed quantities and they will be evaluated in the following phases of the tendering process, ESM said.
The ESM general manager Vasko Kovacevski said earlier this month that the company will increase its power output from coal from December 2021 to April 2022 to meet demand from companies as the global energy crisis intensifies. ESM will offer the power surplus to local companies at prices lower than those on the free energy market, where industrial consumers buy electricity, Kovacevski said.
Under the plan, ESM will increase coal mining and purchase additional coal. It will also activate the last, third unit of REK Bitola TPP and continue to operate REK Oslomej TPP. The government intended to stop the operation of Oslomej as part of a plan to build a solar power plant at the site of an old coal mine in the mining and energy complex.