80% of existing coal deposits are of low grade
Saturday, March 5 2005 - 02:00 AM WIB
Most of low-grade coal reserves, which account for about 80 percent of the country?s total coal deposits, remain untapped because the exploration cost of such low-grade coal is still too expensive compared to their market prices, Investor Daily reported on Saturday.
?Coal reserves found in Indonesia could reach 60 billion tons and could last for 200 years, based on current production rate. But the problem is that almost 80 percent of them comprise of low-grade coal which is often not viable for exploration,? said Lobo Belia, a senior researcher at the ministry of energy and mineral resources.
Lobo said that the volume of coal reserves that comprise of high and medium-grade coal were quite limited. ?Perhaps, this high and medium grade coals will last only within five and six years,? he said.
A number of research works have been taken to upgrade the quality of the low-grade coal. He said that the ministry was still testing the use of the so-called Upgrade-Brown Coal (UBG) technology in order to increase the value of the low-grade coal. (*)