China?s Sedin eyes coal gasification project in RI

China?s engineering company Second Design Institute of Chemical Industry (Sedin) is planning to develop coal gasification project in Indonesia, with construction hopefully could start in 2019.

Director General of Chemical, Textile and Miscellaneous Industry at the Ministry of Indonesia, Achmad Sigit said that Sedin, which has discussed the plan with the government, aims to utilize Indonesia?s huge low rank coal potential to be processed into gas, which will become an alternative source of raw material specifically for the petrochemical industry.

?Indonesia has huge low rank coal potential. Sedin is said to have developed a number of technologies utilizing low rank coal, that?s why we invited the company to come here,? he said.

He said that the government will push one of the country?s state-owned fertilizer firms to partner with Sedin in the proposed coal gasification project. He added that Sedin will look for coal mines as the project must located near the mine.

Achmad hoped that the planned project could start construction in 2019 if a local partner for Sedin could be obtained in the near future.

He said that once realized, domestic industries could obtain alternative source of gas supply at lower price compared to current gas price for industries of US$7-8 per mmbtu. He assumed that with current low rank coal price of around $20 per ton, the gas from the coal gasification project could be priced at only around $3-4 per mmbtu. (*)