Coal royalty revenue more than doubles

By Tri Subhki R

Despite lingering weak coal price, the government received greater royalty revenue from the coal mining sector in the country during the first quarter of this year as more miners paid their obligation.

Director General of Mineral and Coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, R. Sukhyar said that the coal royalty revenue during the first quarter of this year reached Rp 11 trillion, or more than doubled the Rp 5 trillion collected in the same period of last year.

Speaking at an opening speech of the CoalTrans Asia conference on the resort island of Bali Monday, Sukhyar said that the higher revenue was not because of higher production but was mainly as the result of collection optimization in cooperation with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), forcing many IUP mining permit holders to pay the royalty obligation.

Sukhyar said that the full year coal royalty target has been set at Rp37.6 trillion. In 2013, state revenue from coal royalty was Rp24.4 trillion.

"Considering the realization in the first quarter, we hopefully can reach the coal royalty collection target this year," he said.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak