Arutmin says illegal miners activities in its working areas reduced

Illegal coal miners that are operating inside PT.Arutmin Indonesia?s concession areas had been significantly reduced their activities in the past few months due to combination of law enforcement and scarcity of fuel to operate heavy equipments, a company official said.

?Most of them had stopped operations, but they still stay inside Arutmin?s working areas,? company?s senior official Sonny Pangestu told Petromindo.Com Thursday. Arutmin is South Kalimantan?s second biggest coal producer after PT.Adaro Indonesia.

Sonny said the new South Kalimantan police chief had in the past few months taken strict measures on illegal miners, including arrests and cutting down their logistics especially diesel oil supply.

?I hope the new national police chief and South Kalimantan police chief would be consistent in their strict approach,? he said. He said previous police chiefs also took stern measures against illegal miners at the beginning of their term but only for short term.

Reports had been circulating that certain elements from South Kalimantan police and military are protecting the lucrative business.

South Kalimantan police under the new chief had been trying to stop subsidized fuels that are used by illegal miners to run the heavy equipments. The measures had caused illegal and semi legal miners all over South Kalimantan scrambling for supply and some had temporarily stopped operations. Legal mining operations are required to buy fuel at international price, which is about 100 percent more expensive than subsidized one.

Arutmin?s concession areas are infested by thousands of illegal miners, who, armed with heavy equipments dig millions of tons of coal per year.

Sonny estimated that the illegal miners in 2001-2003 period alone stole around 30 million tones of coal, or roughly similar to Arutmin?s production. ?After 2003, we stopped counting (the volume of coal taken by illegal miners) because it took billions of rupiahs to count but every report we filed to relevant authorities fail to curb the activities,? he said.

However, Sonny said the presence of thousands of illegal miners in Arutmin?s working areas also posed potential problems. ?We fear that they might take actions that would disturb operations. Some small protests had occurred. We hope it would not get bigger,? he said.

Arutmin is a subsidiary of Indonesian top coalmining house PT. Bumi Resources.

South Kalimantan is a heaven for illegal and semi legal coal mining activities; where diggers, protected by local authorities, had been extracting coal from the province without paying any taxes except to the corrupt officials and thugs. (alex)