East Kalimantan officials to meet Minister Purnomo over KPC divestment
Wednesday, March 6 2002 - 01:06 AM WIB
?On March 8, we?ll decide on this issue. The provincial administration, regency administration and special legislative team will meet once again with Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Purnomo Yusgiantoro to discuss the problem. We expect to have a final decision on the divestment program,? lawmaker M. Mujiono told the local Kaltim Post daily Tuesday.
Mujiono said that East Kalimantan was determined that March 31 would be the last deadline for KPC to conclude its divestment obligation.
He said that if KPC failed to meet the deadline, the lawmakers would ?support? any action taken by the ?people? including a possible blockade.
KPC, equally owned by Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto and Anglo-American energy giant BP PLC, operates a vast mining site in Sangatta, East Kutai regency, with last year?s output of 17 million tons of coal.
KPC is obliged to divest a 51 percent stake to local investor. But the divestment program has been delayed for several times since 1999 due to various problems.
The latest issue, was disagreement over the share price. The central government has bid at a lower price than demanded by KPC shareholders. East Kalimantan administration, which has the top priority to purchase the stake, even made a much lower bid.
The central government and KPC earlier agreed that the divestment program was expected to be concluded March 31.(*)