Team set up to improve PTBA railway coal transportation

The government has established a special team assigned to seek ways to improve the railway track used to transport coal for the Suralaya power plant in Banten Province, Koran Tempo daily report on Monday.

Suralaya, which is one of the country's largest power plants, gets its coal needs from state-owned coal miner PT Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam (PTBA)'s mine site in Tanjung Enim, South Sumatra.

But the coal transportation has often been hampered by the poor quality of the railway track.

PTBA transports its coal by trains to the Tarakan coal terminal in Panjang, Lampung before being shipped to the Suralaya plant. The bad condition of the railway track, however, has caused a drop in the coal supply from PTBA from between 500,000 to 600,000 tons a month in the last year to about 400,000 tons at present.

The cut in the coal supply has also resulted in a significant decline in the power generation at the Suralaya plant.

Jarman, the chief commissioner of PTBA said that the team would comprise representatives from the coal mining company, state owner railway operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia, and Indonesia Power, the owner of the Suralaya plant.

The team would work for about two months to study the best alternative in improving the railway track and its financing. He said that the government has lobbied a Japanese investor to seek the financing of the 400 km railway track improvement project from the Japanese government. (*)