PLN needs coal with 5000 kcal/kg cv

By Dihar

State Electricity Company PT PLN is in need of coal with calorific value (cv) of 5000kcal/kg to fuel its power plants.

PLN Coal Division Chairman Helmy Najamuddin said to CoalAsia that coal companies have so far supplied PLN with coal of 4000 kcal/kg cv. "Companies like Adaro for long has exported its 5000 kcal/kg cv coal while supplying the domestic market with those of 4000 kcal/kg cv only" he said on Tuesday.

Helmy nevertheless stated that the company has managed to provide sufficient supply of coal for all national power stations, especially on mine mouths, during the three years period since the Ministerial Regulation regarding Coal Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) was put in effect.

He however complained about the regulated coal price on mine mouth in accordance with the Regulation of the Directorate General of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Number 1348. "The market for coal at mine mouth is highly limited, it shouldn't adopt international prices," he said, suggesting to recalculate prices based on mining cost and profit margin.

According to Helmy, domestic demand of coal for national power stations is approximately 54 million tons per year. Therefore PLN had signed purchase contracts with various suppliers for up to 61 million tons with payment terms adjustable according to actual consumptions.

PLN plans to put three of its planned mine mouth power plants, with a total capacity of 2,600 MW, out for tender in June, expecting them to commence operation in 2016.

The three plants would be sourcing coal from PT Bukit Asam, which last year produced close to 20 million tons.

The largest mine mouth power plant to date is PLTU South Sumatra 9, requiring up to 8.7 million tons of coal a year, followed by PLTU Jambi and PLTU South Sumatra 10 with up to 5.84 and 4.38 million tons of coal a year, respectively.

"Each 100 MW of power generation requires around 2,000 tons of coal a day," he explained.

Eddy Prasodjo, Coal Business Development Director of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources recently said that the DMO realization in 2011 reached 66.31 million tons, higher than the initial target of 60.15 million tons.

"We expected the figure to reach 82.07 million tons this year, or 24.72 percent from the total coal production target for 2012," he said, citing the Ministerial Regulation 1991.K/30/DJB/2011.

PLN is known to take up 69.7 percent of the total DMO supply, reaching 57.2 million tons in 2011, while private power plants took 13.11 percent or 10.76 million tons, and cement factories cosumed 10.24 percent or 8.4 million tons.

The remaining DMO supply is consumed by PT Freeport (830,000 tons), PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (540,000 tons) and PT Pusaka Jaya Palu Power (190,000 tons).

Editing by Audy Zandri