Adaro declares force majeur, villagers end blockade
Saturday, February 28 2004 - 03:58 AM WIB
?Adaro is running out of stockpile at Kelanis loading port, therefore we have to declare force majeur to our buyers,? Administration manager Priyadi told Petromindo.Com Saturday
Priyadi said villagers that had blocked the company?s hauling road since Tuesday had mostly been dispersed by the police but said thus far there is no guarantee that the mob would not repeat their action as some of the them are still gathering around the hauling road.
?Up to now we haven?t decided to resume production despite the end of the blockade. We want to make sure this thing does not happen again once we resume production,? he said.
He added that negotiation with villagers, who demanded compensation are still on going but he hinted that Adaro would not submit to their demand. Villagers are demanding Adaro to pay them Rp. 1.2 billion (US$ = Rp. 8,400), saying that Adaro?s operations had caused flooding in the surrounding villages. Adaro declined to compensate the villagers, as flooding is an annual event in the area and had nothing to do with Adaro?s operations. ?What we may do is to increase commodity development budget allocation to the villages of Ku?u and tamiyang,? said Priyadi.
Priyadi said that the blockade had cost the company 280,000 tons in production opportunity loss.
Priyadi said currently there is only one bulk vessel berthing at Kelanis loading port. ?One vessel bound for Paiton power plant had arrived this morning. The vessel is scheduled to transport 45,000 tons of coal to the East Java power plant,? he said. Another vessel, said Priyadi, is scheduled to arrive on Sunday.
Another Adaro official at the mining site contacted by Petromindo.Com said that production would likely be resumed Saturday as both parties are close to reach agreement.
Adaro, which operates a giant mine in South Kalimantan produced 22.5 million tons of coal last year, with most of production went to export market.(godang)