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Adaro secures three new contracts, says outlook positive
Publicly listed PT Adaro Energy, the country's second largest coal miner, announced Wednesday it had secured three new coal contracts from buyers from India, Thailand and Indonesia
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Publicly listed PT Adaro Energy, the country's second largest coal miner, announced Wednesday it had secured three new coal contracts from buyers from India, Thailand and Indonesia.
Adaro has committed itself to delivering up to 2 million tons of coal per year for each buyer, with first delivery due by next December, marketing director Alastair Grant said after the annual shareholders' meeting.
The contracts would last for a total of 15 years, but are subject to review every five years, Grant said.
When asked about the price, Grant refused to give the figures, saying that there was a confidentiality agreement in the contracts.
"We always sell at market price because if we do not, there's either an unhappy buyer who therefore won't take our coal, or an unhappy seller, ourselves, who will try to change it," Grant said.
Grant also refused to reveal the buyers' identity due to the confidentiality agreement. He only said that the buyer companies are the operators of new power plants that would start operation next year.
Grant said the contracts justified the company's prediction that demand from the Asian market would remain strong this year with the operation of new power plants in China, India and Indonesia.
To meet demand, the company will remain on track in raising production to between 42 and 45 million tons of coal this year with 70 percent of the production to be exported, president director Garibaldi Thohir said.
Last year, the company produced 38.5 million ton of coal and exported it mostly to Asian nations like India, Hong Kong, Japan, and to several EU countries, and to the US.
For the selling price, Adaro has targeted an average selling price of between US$52 and $65 a ton this year, higher than $39.5 a ton last year.
Adaro's net profit soared 902 percent to Rp 887 billion (US$87.81 million) last year up from Rp 89 billion in 2007 due to higher selling prices and increased sales volume. Meanwhile its net revenue jumped 82 percent to Rp 4.2 trillion in 2008.
Adaro has forecast double-digit growth in terms of revenue for this year, as evident from its strong showing in the first three-month period when it booked a net profit of Rp 1.15 trillion, a huge rise from the Rp 12 billion in losses a year earlier.
The company managed to sustain growth in the first quarter despite only posting a slight increase in production of between 8 and 9 percent.
Adaro operational director Chia Ah Hoo explained they would make up for the slight rise in first quarter production in the next quarters when there would be less rainfall.
During the shareholders meeting, the company approved the allocation of 42.5 percent of the 2008 net profits, or about, Rp 377.43 billion (US$37.36 million) as dividends, equivalent to Rp 11.8 a share.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported also Wednesday that investors in Adaro raised Rp 1.54 trillion selling shares at a 10 percent discount to yesterday's price, citing a sale document.
About 1.25 billion shares exchanged hands on the negotiated market, where investors and exchange members negotiated the price and reported it to the exchange, at Rp 1,230 per share.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. helped sell the shares for investors including the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and Goldman Sachs SSG, the document said.
