Mining investors from Australia wait for Law on Mineral and Coal

Investment activities in energy sector by Australian companies will not improve before the Indonesian government completes a set of legal means related to energy, particularly the Draft Law on Mineral and Coal, Bisnis Indonesia reported Wednesday.

The Indonesia-Australia Business Council?s (IABC) President Noke Kiroyan said a number of investors from Australia had expressed their interest in investing in energy sector in Indonesia. However, he said, they were still waiting for the enactment of the draft law.

?Investors (from Australia) are still in the wait and see attitude, waiting for the draft law being passed into a law,? he said on the sideline of the Indonesia-Australia Business Forum in Melbourne, Australia.

Noke said that investors from Australia would not take the risk of investing in energy sector in Indonesia before there was certainty regarding the draft law.

The forum was attended by a number of energy and mining companies in Australia, such as Santos, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.

?Santos has long been operating (in Indonesia). It has a mining concession in Indonesia. However, new investors or those who have come to Indonesia, are still waiting for the (certainty) regarding the draft law (on mineral and coal resources).?

Regarding the possible cooperation between Indonesia and Australia to develop alternative energies, Noke, who is also President Director of American mining firm PT Newmont Pacific Indonesia, said that this would also heavily depend on how the government set the regulation.

Last week, Minister of Trade Marie E. Pangestu, who was also in Australia to attend a trade ministerial meeting between the two countries, said that energy sector was one of the issues discussed with Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile. (*)