APBI says coal demand from India will continue to grow
Friday, September 16 2011 - 03:05 AM WIB
Bob Kamandanu sees that coal from Indonesia will still get a strong demand from Indian buyers despite some of Indian power plants complaining regarding government?s monthly coal price benchmark.
?Maybe India will be scouting to other countries or later exploit more coal mines in their countries but for sure, there is no immediate action for that,? Bob said without giving further explanation as to when or under what circumstances it could actually happen.
Recently news reported that some Indian power plant projects including a project by Tata Power, raising concerns over viability of the projects due to a new Indonesian coal pricing policy has inflated their investment
Tata Power, which is executing the Mundra ultra mega power plant, has expressed concerns over the viability of the 4,000Mw project under the present circumstances as the new policy has inflated costs for building the power plant. ?Despite our efforts to complete the project (Mundra UMPP) well within the targets and cost, circumstances have arisen which could result in the project becoming unviable,? Tata said in its letter to the Power Ministry.
Earlier, Reliance Power had raised similar issues for its Krishnapatnam UMPP in Andhra Pradesh.
Indian firm JSW Energy also has got impact and it said the plan to expand its Ratnagiri power plant by 3,200 Mw would be postponed till issues regarding imported coal were sorted.
India is expecting to import around 67 million tonnes of coal this year, 15 percent increased compared to the previous year. India imports are expected to exceed 100 million tonnes by 2015. Indonesia is still a major coal supplier to India. (denny)