BP sees bearish coal market to continue until the end of the year

By Cepi Setiadi

The slowdown in Asian coal market will last at least until the end of this year, Christof Ruhl, Group Chief Economist and Vice President of British Petroleum (BP) plc said on Tuesday.

"The factors are an over supply of coal especially from Colombia and the United States of America which is penetrating Asian markets," he told Petromindo.com on the sidelines of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2012 in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Ruhl added demands for coal are accelerating in several countries in Asia, intensifying competition in the coal market which is resulting in a pressure on coal prices.

Meanwhile, BP Statistical Review on Indonesia showed that in 2012 Indonesia produced 6.2 percent of the global coal output, the third highest in the world.

The review added that coal production in Indonesia rose by 273 percent over the past ten years. Coal remains the most-used fuel in Indonesia with 67 percent contribution to Indonesian total energy production, followed by gas (18 percent), and oil (13 percent). All the three had the shares of about 32-33 percent in the national energy production a decade ago

Editing by Johannes Simbolon