India's NTPC plans to import 2 million tons of coal from Indonesia

National Thermal Power Corporation of India (NTPC) plans to import about two million tons of high grade coal from Indonesia to meet the coal need of its new power plants, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Thursday.

Quoting a report released by the Indonesian embassy in India, the daily said that the Indian company would import the Indonesian coal through a Singapore-based trading house which represents a number of Indonesian coal producers.

NTPC would import the Indonesian coal to meet the coal needs of its three power plants in Farakha, Simanhadri and Talcher. At present, most of NTPC's coal needs are supplied by local coalminers Coal India and Singareni Colleriers.

Commenting on the request made by NTPC, the director of coal production at the ministry of energy and mineral resources Mahyudin Lubis said that Indonesia, with its growing coal production, would not face any problems to cope with the increase in the coal demand from overseas buyers.

"There will be no problem because most of Indonesian coalminers have allocated larger part of their production for export market," he said. (*)