Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo has urged state electric company PT PLN to speedily complete its 10,000 megawatt (MW) coal-based power plant projects for the sake of fuel-subsidy savings.

According to Agus, PLN’s dependency on fuel has made it difficult to save fuel subsidies and that if the company could convert one of its fuel-based power stations’ energy sources to coal or gas, the state could save trillions of rupiah.

“Some phases of the 10,000 MW project are late in being completed and, as long as this goes on, the power plants will use fuel as their energy source,” Agus told reporters at the Finance Ministry in Jakarta on Thursday.

“If only one power plant converts its energy source from fuel to coal then, on average, we can save at least Rp 6 trillion of fuel subsidies annually,” he added.

As of now, PLN uses subsidized fuel as the energy...