PTBA says liquefaction JV plan with Sasol likely to collapse

IDX-listed state coal mining firm PT Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam Tbk (PTBA) said the planned coal liquefaction JV with South African integrated energy firm Sasol Limited may collapse as PTBA did not have adequate coal reserves as required by Sasol, CEO Soekrisno said on Wednesday.

Soekrisno told reporters that Sasol required mineable reserves of 2 billion tonnes for the project to be realized while PTBA has only 1.6 billion tonnes, all of which had been allocated for its other joint partners/project. ?700 million tonnes will be absorbed by Adani Group, 500 MT by railway project with PT Transpacific Railway Infrastructure and 400 MT by another railway project with state railway firm PT Kereta Api Indonesia.

Sasol announced in December 2009 that it has signed an MoU with the government of Indonesia to study viability of setting up Coal-to-Liquid facility to produce approximately 80, 000 barrels per day of high quality ultra-clean transportation fuels, from Indonesia's abundant domestic lignite coal reserves.

A government official said earlier that apart from PTBA, two other candidates which have huge low rank coal reserves are South Sumatra coal miner PT Pendopo Energi Batubara, which is controlled by the Bakrie family and East Kalimantan coal miner Bhakti Energi Persada. (*)