Palace enters into MoU for activated carbon plant

By Ruli Setiawan

ASX-listed Palace Resources Limited, through its subsidiary company, said that it has entered into a separate memorandum of understanding with its Indonesian partner, PT Rindra Bara Utama (RBU), to collaborate on the development of a commercial facility for the beneficiation of coal through to an activated carbon product.

It is proposed that Palace will earn an initial 30 percent position in the final joint venture company, the company said in a statement received Thursday.

Carbon raising is a coal upgrading process performed by driving off the volatiles in the coal & reducing the moisture content, thus yielding an end-product with higher fixed carbon content and minimal ash. It is the intention to conduct trials to determine if the sourced coal, once beneficiated through this process, can be used in the steel industry or treated again to create an activated carbon product, the statement said.

It is the joint ventures intention to build a pilot plant to test feed stock and to define the process. Upon receipt of successful trial results, the parties intended to then build a commercial plant which will be specifically designed to accept coal from the projects currently controlled by RBU and Palace Resources.

This is an extension of the business activity for Palace from its traditional exploration and mining activities, but is an important step in achieving the highest return for the product being mined.

Palace Resources, through subsidiary Kalimantan Mining and Logistics Pte Ltd (KML), said on September 9 it was finalizing a joint venture with coal mining firm RBU to jointly develop a 200 ha producing project in Sumatra.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak