Siemens consortium wins Petronas contract to build co-generation plant

KUALA LUMPUR, May 16 (Reuters) - Malaysia's state oil company Petroliam Nasional (Petronas) has awarded a consortium of Siemens, Siemens Malaysia and MMC Engineering Services a contract to build a co-generation plant in the state of Johor, it said on Friday.

The engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning contract was awarded by Pengerang Power Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Petronas, on May 12, the company said in a statement.

The combined heat and power plant is one of the six facilities in the pipeline within the Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) that involves up to a total of $11 billion of investment.

"The plant's first co-generation unit is expected to be commercially operational by mid-2017," the statement said. "Once completed, Pengerang Co-generation Plant will be able to produce 1,220 MW of power and will provide reliable and continuous supply of steam of up to 1,480 tonnes per hour to the PIC."

The board of Petronas gave the green light last month for a $16 billion refinery and petrochemical integrated development (Rapid), also within the PIC, that is scheduled to start refinery operations by early 2019.

Petronas, which finances more than a third of Malaysia's government budget via dividends, this week reported an 8 percent drop in first-quarter net profit to 16.2 billion ringgit ($5 billion) aftr an increase in operating expenses. ($1 = 3.2260 Malaysian Ringgits)

(Reporting By Anuradha Raghu; Editing by David Goodman)