Govt will not review tariff of transporting PTBA?s coal

The government will not review the new coal transportation tariff agreed on by state railway operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) and state coal miner PT Batubara Bukit Asam (PTBA), a senior government official said on Monday as reported by Media Indonesia daily.

?We like to see KAI fulfilling the tariff agreement. If it turns out that the company can not transport coal with the agreed tariff, the government will surely help increase its transporting capacity,? said Ferdinand Nainggolan, deputy to the state minister of state enterprises in charge of logistics and tourism.

Ferdinand is sure that KAI can transport more than 6.5 million tons of coal annually, from PTBA?s coal mining sites in Muara Enim, South Sumatra, to Lampung, from where the commodity is shipped to Suralaya power plant in Banten.

He was responding to Taufik Hidayat, executive director of Indonesian Railway Watch, who said that the tariff agreement would cause KAI suffer losses. KAI currently has capacity to transport no more than 6.5 million tons of coal annually.

In October, KAI and PTBA agreed that the railway operator would charge the coalminer Rp37,000 (US$=Rp8,900) for each of coal transported from South Sumatra to Lampung.

The two sides agreed however that the Rp37,000 tariff would be effective only if KAI transports 8.5 million tons of coal annually, and that the tariff would be lowered if less coal is transported.

The newspaper said top executives of the two firms might have met on Monday to discuss the tariff issue. (*)