KPC?s Bengalon commences trial production

East Kalimantan coal miner PT. Kaltim Prima coal said on Wednesday that it had commenced trial production at its Bengalon mine with a view to produce 500,000 tones from the mine this year, lower than its earlier plan.

?Mining equipments had been in place and trial production had commenced Tuesday,? KPC president Ari S. Hudaya told Petromindo.Com.

Bengalon, which is originally planned to commence production last year, had been faced by several problems including land acquisition problems and bankruptcy of its mining contractor Australia?s Henry Walker Eltin.

?With all this problems we are not going to rush production from Bengalon? said Ari.

Earlier, a company official projected Bengalon to produce 4 million tones this year.

KPC is a unit of Indonesia?s top coal mininghouse JSX-listed PT.Bumi Resources.

Elsewhere, Ari also said that KPC is in talks to supply KPC?s coal with a number of European utility firms with ?significant volume of contract potential?. ?We hope to close the deals this June,? he said, without giving further detail. (godang)