South Kalimantan's coal potentials reach 5 billion tons

The head of the South Kalimantan's Energy and Mineral Resources office, Suhama A. Rasjid, said that the coal mining potentials in the province reached 5 billion tons.

"Out of those huge mineral resource potentials, especially coal, mining companies and also cooperatives had only exploited about 125 million tons as of the end of August," he said in Banjarmasin on Monday.

Besides coals, South Kalimantan province has also other mineral reserves, including 2.1 million tons of gold ores, containing 2.2 to 2.3 grams of gold per tons of gold ore; 194.8 million tons of iron ore, containing 42.2 percent to 68.5 percent of iron, and 23.5 million tons of diamond ore, containing 0.05 carat of diamond per cubic meter of ore.

Suhama acknowledged that such mineral potentials such as coal, gold, diamond and had attracted illegal mining activities that needed special attention to deal with. (*)