Energy Ministry to establish research agency

Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry plans to set up a mining research agency to provide credible data on the country?s coal and mineral resources, total sales transactions and their trade margins, Kontan reported on Saturday.

Tatang Sabaruddin, the director for the ministry?s development program for coal and minerals, said in Jakarta on Friday that the ministry was still assessing the possibility of establishing the research agency.

In addition to the research agency, the ministry also plans to develop the drilling technology in the mining sector so that more mineral resources could be detected. At present, the drilling technology has the capacity to drill coal deposits only up to a depth of 50 meters.

In the future, the government plans to develop new drilling technology which could be used to drill up to a depth of 200 meters, he said. ?If we can drill to the depth of 200 meters, our mineral reserves could be bigger,? he added.

At present Indonesia has coal reserves of 28 billion tons, which are mineable for 80 years.(*)