WEC seeks coal concessions in Indonesia as dispute continues
Wednesday, September 18 2013 - 01:56 AM WIB
ASX-listed coal upgrading firm White Energy Company (WEC) is conducting due diligence on several coal projects in Indonesia after its JV with Indonesian coal mining group Bayan Resources failed, and ended up in dispute.
According to the company?s presentation released on Wednesday it continued to identify coal properties for acquisition, where its binderless coal briquetting (BCB) technology can be utilized to upgrade lower rank coals.
The company did not give further detail about the acquisition target.
Meanwhile, the company also disclosed that it continued to work on the legal dispute with Bayan Resources regarding the terminated Kaltim Supacoal (KSC) JV, including preparation for the Singapore trial in 2014.
WEC and Bayan involved in legal dispute after the latter unilaterally terminated the KSC JV in 2012.
KSC is a JV company owned 51 percent by WEC and 49 percent by Bayan. It was formed in 2006 to construct, commission and operate a 1 million ton per annum coal upgrading plant at Bayan?s Tabang coal mine in East Kalimantan.
The plant had been on trial run when Bayan decided to quit the JV as it was able to sell its 4,200 kcal/kg coal at higher margin to the market than having them fed to the upgrading plant. The company also expressed concerns regarding material handling issue in particular the level of dust generated.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak