South Sumatra?s proven coal deposits tripled: Team

The proven coal deposits in South Sumatra have increased by 362 percent to 12 billion tons from just 2.6 billion tons and the potential coal deposits in the area have also increased to 46 billion tons from 26 billion tons, the team of Indonesian-Japan joint study said.

The increase in both instances came to light after establishing a new data base system.

The system has been developed by the joint study evaluation of coal resources and reserves in Indonesia in cooperation with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources? geology department and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization of Japan (NEDO).

The joint team has been working since 2004, with the results published this year.

President of the Japan Coal Energy Center Katsuyoshi Ando said the project was undertaken because of inconsistencies in the existing data on Indonesian coal.

?This system can be used as the standard for calculation, which is expected to be accurate and reliable,? Ando said during the presentation of the project?s results in Jakarta on Thursday.

The Japan Coal Energy Center was appointed by the NEDO to run the operations of the project.

Meanwhile, the head of the geology department of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry Bambang Dwianto said that besides South Sumatra, the team will measure coal deposits in South and East Kalimantan provinces staring this year. (godang/bernard)