Nippon Oil scouts for mid-sized, small coal suppliers

Coal trading unit of Japanese firm Nippon Oil Corporation is currently scouting for more coal supply from Indonesia to be sold to its customers in Japan.

Takaaki Minonishi, Manager Business Development Coal told Petromindo.Com on Tuesday on a sideline of CoalTrans Conference in Bali that the company is looking for supply from medium sized and small miners as big miners?s production have been fully booked.

Currently, Nippon Oil has 200,000 tonnes contract with state coal mining firm PT.Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam (PTBA).

According to Minonishi, currently the company sells 8.2-8.5 MT of coal annually to its customers in Japan, which are mostly home industry. Some 8MTPA of the coal traded by Nippon Oil is imported from Australia, he said. (denny)