TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
PLN warns of another coal crisis
State-owned electricity monopoly PLN reported a declining inventory in the last three months due to a wide gap between capped domestic prices and the prices paid by offshore buyers.
Change Size
An employee works on a truck filled with coal at the Karya Citra Nusantara (KCN) Marunda Port in Jakarta on Jan. 17, after Indonesia eased an export ban on the commodity. (AFP/Adek Berry)
T
he government is being urged to quickly implement the coal public services agency (BLU) and tighten rules on domestic coal sales amid concern that the country is heading toward another domestic coal-supply crisis.
State-owned electricity monopoly PLN reported a declining inventory in the last three months due to a wide gap between capped domestic prices and the prices paid by offshore buyers.
PLN president director Darmawan Prasodjo said that, although the company’s coal inventory was above the secure level of 4.5 million tons in the February-June period, supplies were declining faster as power demand rose beyond expectations.
As a result, PLN needed to secure an additional 7.7 million tons of coal to anticipate a 5.3 terawatt-hour (TWh) increase in electricity demand as the country’s economic recovery continues.
“[PLN] noted a downtrend in coal supply amid increasing electricity demand. If there’s [no improvement] in the current situation, we may face another [coal] crisis,” he told House of Representatives Commission VII overseeing energy and mineral resources in a hearing in Jakarta on Tuesday.
The commission met during recess on Tuesday, fearing the country, the world’s biggest thermal coal exporter, was headed for a repeat of a domestic supply crisis late last year that saw exports banned for a few weeks in January, triggering panic among foreign buyers.
PLN data show that its coal supply in January – the beginning of the crisis-recovery period – amounted to 4.4 million tons, before it significantly increased to 5.68 million tons and 5.69 million tons in February and March, respectively.
