Coal DMO target tough to meet: ICMA

By Adianto P. Simamora

Petromindo|Lucky

The Indonesian Coal Mining Association (ICMA) said that the government?s target to allocate 107 million tons of the country?s coal production in 2018 for domestic market under its domestic market obligation (DMO) policy will be difficult to realize unless the government issues policies that could accelerate the development of coal-fired power plants.

According to the DMO policy, about 80 percent of the proposed 107 million tons of coal output will be allocated for power plants in the country.

?It seems the target is difficult to be realized,? said Deputy Executive Director of ICMA, Hendra Sinadia to Petromindo.com on Monday. He pointed out that coal DMO target over the past few years had been repeatedly missed due to lower consumption by the power plant sector.

He said that the government must make breakthrough to accelerate the development of the coal-fired power plant projects this year.

?What the government can do is to issue regulation that supports the acceleration of electricity projects. The current regulations that hinder the development of the power plant projects should be reviewed. PLN should also speed up the auction process,? he said, but stopped short from saying which regulations have hampered power plant development.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak