Sawahlunto has 100 million tons of coal deposit

Sawahlunto municipality in West Sumatera still holds a coal deposit of at least 100 million tons but not all of the huge coal reserves could be mined due to their difficult geographical condition, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Friday.

The mayor of Sawahlunto, Amran Nur, said on Thursday that it would be difficult to mine such huge coal deposits due to their difficult location. "Without using a modern underground mining technology it will be difficult to get the coal deposits," he said.

He said using the conventional technology to mine the coal deposits would be too costly. This situation has caused a continued decline in the municipality's coal production. In 2003, the coal production totaled only 13,000 tons, as compared to 736,738 tons in 2000 and 1.09 million tons in 1999.

Based on such an assessment, the local administration had no longer included a coal mining in its priority lists. Instead of focusing on coal mining, the local government has now turned to tourism and other sectors in its development program. (*)