Titan Mining hopes to produce 5 mt next year

PT Titan Mining Indonesia is hoping it will be able to increase coal production to 5 million tons next year from about 2 million tons this year, Kontan daily reported on Thursday.

At present, Titan operates three mining concessions in Jambi, Bengkulu and East Kalimantan, which have coal reserves of about 50 million tons each.

The company?s chief executive officer Irfan Setiaputra said in Jakarta on Wednesday that Titan has secured a contract to sell about one million tons of coal a year for 20 years to state owned electricity company PLN.

According to him, the company which has been involved in coal production since 2005 exported the rest of the production to India.

Irfan said that the company was struggling to cope with the high transportation costs in order to be able to survive amid the sharp drop in coal prices in the world market. The price of coal with low calorie has dropped to $35 per ton from $50 per ton last year. The price of coal with calorie of above 5,500 kkal per kg also dropped to $85 per ton from $100 per ton.

He said he was optimistic that the price would increase next year in line with the recovery in the world economy especially in China, the main buyer of Indonesia?s coal. (*)