November 4 (SeeNews) - North Macedonia's state-owned electricity producer ESM said it has received offers from nine companies in its tender for the supply of up to 900,000 tonnes of coal for the needs of the REK Bitola thermal power plant (TPP).
ESM received offers from two local mines, as well as mines from Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
All of the bidders have offered the required quantity of coal.
In the next phase, ESM will check whether the offered coal satisfies the minimum technical requirements and make an economic-financial evaluation of the offers.
ESM relaunched the tender for the supply of coal for the needs of REK Bitola in late October after failing to attract bids for the amount it targeted in an earlier call. The electricity producer also launched a tender for coal supply for REK Oslomej TPP earlier in October as part of plans to beat the rise in energy prices by increasing power output from coal.
ESM general manager, Vasko Kovacevski, said in October that the company will increase its power output from coal from December 2021 to April 2022, to meet demand from local companies as the global energy crisis intensifies. ESM will sell the electricity at prices lower than those on the free market, Kovacevski added.
Under the plan, ESM will increase coal mining and purchase additional coal. It will also put into operation the third unit of REK Bitola TPP and continue to operate REK Oslomej TPP. The government previously 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.