PTBA settles coal price for Suralaya and coal transport with KAI

State-owned coal miner PT Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam (PTBA) said Tuesday that it and state electricity firm PT Indonesia Power (PTIP) had settled this year's coal price for Suralaya power plant at a new price of Rp272,000 per tone (US$=Rp9,450), or higher from this year price of Rp244,200 per tone.

PTBA, under a long term contract, is obligated to deliver up to 6.1 million tons of coal from its coalmines in South Sumatra to PTIP?s 3,400 MW Suralaya power plant in Banten.

Ismet said that PTBA had also reached agreement with state railway company PTKAI on coal transportation price. Ismet said that coal transportation from PTBA's tanjung Enim mine to Tarahan coalport in Lampung increased to Rp 53,000 per tone this year from Rp37,000 per tone last year. Contracted volume is 7 million tons for this year.Coal transport price from Tanjung Enim to Kertapati, also in South Sumatra was increased to Rp30,000 per tone from Rp20,000 per tone last year with contracted volume of 1.6 million tones.

In this year's transportation contract, said Ismet, PTKAI refused to be fined if it fails to transport the contracted volume.

PTBA, which has billions of tones of coal resereves had been unable to increase its production from around 10MTPA for years due to poor railway track. Railway is currently the only mode of transportation for PTBA to move its coal to loading ports. (alex/godang)