Indonesia's coal reserves reach 38.8 billion tons

The head of the environment and technology department, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Thamrin Sihite, said that Indonesia's coal mining reserves currently stood at around 38.8 billion tons, consisting of 11.5 billion tons of actual reserves and 27.3 billion tons of indicative reserves.

Sihite said in Balikpapan on Friday (17/11) that most of the coal reserves were located in Sumatra, accounting for 68 percent of the total reserves, Kalimantan 22 percent, and the remaining reserves spread out in Java, Sulawesi, Irian Jaya and Maluku.

Indonesia's coal reserves could be categorized into lignite, accounting for 58.63 percent of all coal reserves, sub-bituminous 26.6 percent, bituminous 14.4 percent, and antrasite 0.36 percent.

"In general our coal reserves have a low level of sulfur, about 1 percent, and therefore it is categorized as a good quality coal," he said.

Indonesia's coal production has been increasing significantly, from merely 200,000 tons per annum in 1973 to 80 million tons this year 2000.

Meanwhile, the head of the East Kalimantan's Energy and Mineral Resources office, Istiarjo, said that Indonesia's coal reserves could be depleting not only because of mining activities, both legal and illegal, but also because of fires.

He noted that coal reserves were located in about 7,200 points of locations. Say, 10 percent of those points were burned, the fire would have engulfed about 4.9 million tons of coal.

Worse still, the fire from coal points usually caused widespread forest fires, especially in Kalimantan island. "During long a dry season or draught or during the El-Nino, it is very likely that fire could start from coal reserves points." (*)