KPC may be absent from divestment meeting in East Kalimantan

Coal mining company PT Kaltim Prima indicated it might refuse to attend the meeting scheduled for Monday at the East Kalimantan provincial council to discuss the selling price of its stake.

KPC?s director Lex Graesi was quoted by news agency AFX-Asia as saying Wednesday that KPC could be absent from the meeting because it considered the pricing issue was a matter between the company and the ministry of energy and mineral resources.

The East Kalimantan council has no right to talk about the pricing issue, he maintained.

?East Kalimantan is not in its capacity to determine the price for the stake. They are only going to be a buyer. The price will be determined in the negotiations between the central government and KPC,? Graesi said.

He also said the company had planned to have a meeting on the same day with the Kutai Timur regency council. KPC?s coal mine is located in Sangatta, Kutai Timur, East Kalimantan.

?We can?t be present at two locations at the same time,? he said.

The next Monday meeting was planned by the East Kalimantan council?s special committee for the KPC divestment following a meeting Monday this week in Jakarta, where the representatives of the special committee, the ministry and KPC?s shareholders ? Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto Plc and Anglo American energy firm BP Plc ? failed to reach an agreement on the price of the stake.

Secretary to the special committee Andi Harun earlier warned that KPC should attend the meeting. Otherwise, the East Kalimantan will get angry and force the company to stop its coal operation.

Under the contract, KPC has to divest a 51 percent stake to Indonesia this year and the East Kalimantan province has voiced interest in the stake. (*)