China’s mining company wants to explore Ombilin coal mine

China’s state-owned mining company China Mining Corporation (CMC) wants to explore Ombilin coal mine in West Sumatra, the Investor daily Indonesia newspaper reported in its Monday edition.

This has been conveyed to the state-owned coal miner PT Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam Tbk (PTBA) in a letter. CMC will soon submit a proposal regarding exploration activities at Ombilin coal mine to PTBA.

The corporate secretary of PTBA Milawarma said CMC has offered a cooperation scheme regarding Build-Own-Transferred (BOT) to his company.

“With the BOT process, it (CMC) can operate and later we will pay per ton that it produced. It will also possible production sharing,” Milawarma said last week in Jakarta,

Milawarma mentioned that the CMC is a Chinese state company that emerged after the restructurization of China National Technology Import and Export Corporation (CNITEC). Earlier, CNITEC had done exploration activities at Ombilin and its contract was ended in 2003.

Though the CMC is the only company that submitted proposal to conduct exploration activities at Ombilin, PTBA has yet to decide to accept the proposal.(*)