Bukit Asam's net profit falls by 26 percent in 2010

Despite a growing sales volume, state-owned coal miner PT Bukit Asam announced Thursday that its net profit slumped by 26 percent in 2010 to Rp 2.01 trillion (US$228.73 million) from Rp 2.72 percent a year earlier due to the falling domestic prices of coal.

Bukit Asam corporate secretary Achmad Sudarto told The Jakarta Post that last year the average price of coal for domestic sales was only Rp 612,000 per ton, down 17.74 percent from Rp 744,000 in 2009.

“Since 63.5 percent of our production was sold in the domestic market, the decline severely hurt our revenue. However, our sales volume jumped by 4 percent to 12.95 million tons of coal last year from 12.48 percent in 2009,” he said in telephone interview.

An increased average export price, from $64 per ton in 2009 to $67.5 in 2010, was not enough to compensate the decline in the domestic price, Achmad continued. The decline then caused the company's revenues to fall 11.6 percent to Rp 7.91 trillion from Rp 8.95 trillion in 2009, he added.