Govt will soon issue four regulations on implementation of mining law

The government will soon issue four regulations on the implementation of the new mining law which was approved by the House of Representatives (DPR) late last year, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Thursday.

Director general of mineral, coal and geothermal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Bambang Setiawan, said in Jakarta on Wednesday that the four regulations would cover almost all main issues in the mining sector including the domestic market obligation, mine concession areas, mining operations and supervision.

Speaking during a seminar on the country?s mining activities, Bambang said that as the four regulations would have covered almost all major issues in the new sector, the government would unlikely issue 22 implementation regulations as stated in the new law

He said that the ministry initially planned also to issue another regulation for the establishment of benchmark coal prices but it was later cancelled because, according to legal experts, such a price reference could not be regulated through the government?s ruling.

On the issue related to the domestic market obligation (DMO), or the requirement imposed on coal miners to sell certain percentage of their production to domestic market, Bambang said that coal miners would be still required to sell part of their production to the domestic market through a stand-in ruling, until the regulation is formally implemented.

Bambang said that the DMO would be determined in line with the coal demand in the country, which would likely continue to increase in the future due to a sharp rise in the number of coal-fired power plants. This year, the domestic coal demand is projected to reach 68 million tons, of which about 45 million tons will go to state-owned electricity company PLN. The country?s total production is expected to reach 236 million tons in the year. (*)