Indonesia Power to operate floating cranes at Suralaya port

State-owned electricity producer PT Indonesia Power said Tuesday it would operate two floating cranes to accelerate coal unloading process at Suralaya power plant port in Banten.

?These floating cranes will be rented from Arpeni?s operation in Samarinda (East Kalimantan),? Indonesia Power?s operation director Bambang Isti Eddy told Petromindo.Com.

Bambang said both cranes had combined capacity to unload 30,000 tons of coal per day. The cranes would be rented for 6 months and were expected to be installed in Suralaya Port late next month.

Bambang said the new cranes would replaces the current unloading facilities in Suralaya, which only has capacity to unload 20,000 tons of coal per day.

Suralaya is in serious coal-supply problem as state coal miner PT Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam was forced to cut supply to Suralaya due to transportation problem.

Despite having secured help from Kalimantan coal producers to ease supply shortage, Suralaya would still have problem since its port has limited unloading capacity.

Earlier, Indonesia Power said around 950,000 tons of coal per month is required to fuel the 3,400-megawatt power plant.

Arpeni or PT Arpeni Pratama Ocean Line is a local publicly listed shipping company. The company is also transporting PT.BA's coal from Kertapati port in South Sumatra to Suralaya power plant. (godang)