PTBA to complete acquisition of two firms in first-half of this year
Friday, January 16 2015 - 02:43 AM WIB
The paper quoted PTBA Corporate Secretary Joko Pramono as saying that the acquisition of about 95 percent stake in the mining services firm would help to further improve cost efficiency. ?It (the acquisition process) is at the final stage. We hope in the first quarter of this year, it could be completed,? he said, but decline to disclose the identity of the targeted company and the acquisition value.
Elsewhere, Joko said that his company also expected to be complete the acquisition of a 20-30 percent stake in Australian coal technology provider Ignite Energy Resources (IER) in the first half of this year.
As has been reported earlier by this portal, Ignite owns a technology that could convert low rank coal into synthetic crude oil and high calorific value coal or pulverized coal injection (PCI), which PTBA is keen to be developed in Indonesia. The synthetic crude oil can later be processed into gasoline and kerosene, while PCI can be directly used at steel manufacturing plant and low emission power plant.
PTBA and Ignite signed in May of last year an MoU to the so-called Cat-HTR technology in Indonesia.
PTBA has a vision to become a world-class energy firm with coal reserves amounting to 7.3 billion tons in Indonesia, Meanwhile, IER, an energy technology developer holding the patent right of Cat-HTR technology, also operates coal reserves amounting to 16.4 billion in the State of Victoria in Australia. (*)