PTBA, KAI agree on new railway rate
Saturday, June 3 2006 - 02:00 AM WIB
PTBA director Sukrisno told Petromindo.Com Saturday that the new transport rate would be set at Rp.230/tonne/km or around 2.47 US cents dollar at Rp.9, 300 per USD rate. Distance from Muara Enim to Kertapati is 180 kms and from Muara Enim to Tarahan is 420 kms.
Sukrisno said that the new rate agreement was reached late Friday after one-week intense negotiation. ?Hopefully, railway transportation will get back to normal starting this morning,? he said. He said that the new rate would be backdated from January 1, 2006. ?PTBA is hoping that the rate would be good until the end of 2007, but KAI has yet agreed on that,? he said, adding that negotiation would be continued Monday.
KAI, which had earlier sought to increase transport rate to Rp.300/tonne/km, had been cutting the number of the trains operated to transport PTBA coal by half, a move that threatened PTBA?s export and supply to 3,400-MW Suralaya power plant. Prior to the increase the rate was set at Rp 182.93/tonne/ km for Tanjung Enim to Kertapati and Rp 128.64/ton/ km for Tanjung Enim to Kertapati.
Both parties have failed to reach an agreement on the railway charge hike and the KAI issued a letter to PTBA on May 22 to inform the latter that it would suspend three train services for the Tanjung Enim-Kertapati segment and six train services for the Tanjung Enim-Tarahan segment
PTBA is the main supplier of coal for the 3400-megawatt Suralaya power plant complex in Banten ? the largest power plant complex in the country ? owned by state electricity company PT PLN. PTBA mostly transports its coal from its mines in Tanjung Enim using trains. PTBA exports around 25 percent of its annual production of around 9.5 million tonnes to Malaysia, The Phillippines, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Italy, and Spain.(godang)