Bukit Asam's 2010 net profit down 26 percent

State-owned coal miner PT Bukit Asam booked a net profit of Rp 2.01 trillion (US$=Rp 8770) last year, a 26 percent decline from Rp 2.71 trillion in 2009 due to the fall in the price of coal in the domestic market.

PTBA's president director Sukrisno attributed the fall in the profit to the decline in the price of coal sold in the domestic market.

Although sales volume rose by 4 percent to 12.95 million tonnes, last year, the total revenues dropped 11.6 percent to Rp 7.91 trillion because lower domestic prices, he said.

He said the average price of coal for domestic sales fell 17.74 percent to Rp 612,000 per ton from Rp 744,000 in 2009. As 63.5 percent of the company?s total production was sold in the domestic market, the decline in the coal prices at home caused a significant drop in revenues.

This year, Bukit Asam expects to sell 16.8 million tons of coal, a 29 percent increase from 12.95 million tons last year. During this year, the revenue is expected to increase to Rp 10 trillion.

The company said that it has secured a deal with PT Indonesia Power, a subsidiary of state electricity company PT PLN, to supply coal to the Suralaya power plant in Banten province. Under the deal, it will supply 6.1 million tonnes of coal to the power plant this year with a price of Rp 815,000 per tonne.

Besides the Suralaya power plant, the company will also supply coal to the Bukit Asam power plant in South Sumatera and the Tarahan power plant in Lampung with a total volume of a million tonnes and 700,000 tonnes respectively. For Bukit Asam the price has been fixed at Rp 575,000 per tonne, while for Tarahan the price is Rp 729,325 per tonne. (giok)