Reswara to increase output amid price recovery, rising demand

Petromindo

Coal miner PT Reswara Minergi Hartama aims to increase coal production this year to capitalize on current recovery in the price of the commodity and rising demand at home and overseas.

Feriwan Sinatra, President Director of Reswara was quoted by kompas.com and bisnis.com as saying Monday that the company aims to increase coal sales both at home and overseas including Southeast Asia where massive development of coal-fired power plants are in progress.

?We?ll try to capitalize on the improving coal price by increasing production particularly at (our) mine in Sumatra,? he said, referring to its mine in Aceh Province, where it produces low calorific value (CV) coal.

He said that there has been rising demand for low CV coal in the market amid limited supply of high CV coal. ?There?s currently increasing market for low CV coal. In the past, low CV coal was difficult to be marketed, now demand for low CV coal is plenty because (supply) of high CV coal is limited and (their reserves) will decline,? he explained.

Feriwan was quoted by kompas.com as saying his company aims to produce a total of 8.3 million tons of coal this year from mines in Aceh and South Kalimantan. He did not provide comparative figure for last year and details on the production target.

This portal previously quoted Slamet Haryadi, President Director of Aceh-based coal miner PT Mifa Bersaudara, a subsidiary of Reswara, as saying that his company aims to boost coal production this year to 2.5 million tons from 500,000 tons last year. Mifa was forced to drastically cut down production last year due to the weak coal price environment, supplying its coal only to PT Lafarge Cement Indonesia, a cement company in the province.

Mifa Bersaudara has total installed production capacity of 15 million tons per annum. The company produces 3,400 kcal/kg (GAR) coal with very low sulfur content at 0.15 percent but relatively high moisture content.

Reswara through another subsidiary PT Tunas Inti Abadi operates a 3,085-ha coal concession in South Kalimantan with estimated reserves of 52 million tons and resources estimated at 106 million tons.

Feriwan said that the domestic market offers huge potential as the government plans to build a combined 35,000 MW power plants, mostly coal-fired, over a five-year period until 2019. He said that coal demand in Indonesia has been growing at an annual rate of 15 percent for the past five years.

He added that the Southeast Asia market also offers huge potential particularly Vietnam, which is also aggressively developing power plants. ?We?re also looking at the ASEAN market such as Vietnam which aims to build coal-fired power plants. So the market (for coal) will expand,? he said. (*)