Govt prepares blue print on coal development

The government is preparing a blue print on national coal development in a bid to expedite energy diversification programs in the country, according to the director general of general mining at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Surna Tjahjadiningrat.

"We are preparing that (blue print) because thus far, there has been no clear guidance in coal development, although we have already the general guidelines on energy development," he said.

He said the blue print should be ready by next year. Such a blue print was necessary to support the government's energy diversification program as the government plans to abolish fuel subsidy by year 2004.

Nevertheless, he said that the government should also prepare all related regulations to attract more investment in the coal sector.

In a bid to promote the use of coal briquettes, Surna said that the government plans to subsidize the sales of briquettes. But he did not say how much the government would subsidize coal briquettes.

"We are still calculating the subsidy. As a pointer, it needs around Rp 100 billion in subsidy to process around Rp 70,000 tons of briquettes," he said.

He said the government needed to promote the use of coal as energy alternative because Indonesia has abundant of coal reserves. Indonesia has been estimated to have around 28.8 billion tons of coal reserves, of which 60 percent is categorized as low-level coals.

In the domestic market, most of the coals have been used as energy source for power plant, accounting for 70 percent, followed by cement industries, 13 percent and others.

Besides, Indonesia exports most of its coal to a number of countries. In 1999, Indonesia exported a total of 55.3 million tons of coal, or 75 percent of total production of 73.7 million tons. The largest coal export market is Japan, followed by Taiwan, South Korea, and the Netherlands. (Alex)