Madhucon to produce from Dawas this June

By Audy Zandri

PT Madhucon Indonesia, subsidiary of India based infrastructure company Madhucon Projects Limited, said it was expeceting to commence production of its Dawas mine in South Sumatra in June this year.

"Forest clearance for the road and jetty construction in Dawas mine has been completed, and we are hopeful of commencing coal production by June 2012," said Vaikuntanathan in a statement dated May 5, not disclosing its output target.

Known to hold IUP licenses of two mines, namely Dawas and Muara Dua South Sumatra, the company has stated to acquire another mine this year with a combined estimated reserves of around 1,500 million tons.

Madhucon told Petromindo.com back in 2011 that production from its Dawas mine had initially been started that year. "We just started our coal production and we expect to produce 50,000 tons per month in the next couple of months," a source in the company said on July 5, 2011, adding that the produced coal had varied calorific value between 5,000 and 5,600 kcal/kg (ADB) with 45 percent of total moisture.

Another subsidiary of the company, PT Madhucon Sriwijaya Power had on May 5 signed power purchase agreement with Indonesia's State Electricity Company PLN to supply power for up to 25 years from its proposed 2x150MW mine mouth power plant to be set up in South Sumatra at an investment of US$410 million. The agreed purchase price is at US$5.8 cent per kWh.

Editing by David Mustakim