Monday, 30 July 2012

Bumi Resources Digs Up 8.6% More Coal Than in H1 of 2011

Francezka Nangoy | July 28, 2012
The Jakarta Globe

Bumi Resources, the country’s biggest thermal coal producer, said that its coal production rose almost 9 percent in the first half of this year from the same period last year.

Dileep Srivastava, a director at Bumi Resources, said that the company’s coal production was 32.5 million metric tons in the first half of this year, an 8.6 percent increase from 29.9 million tons during the same period last year.

“Our expansion projects are proceeding as scheduled and we expect to step up output in the second half of 2012,” Srivastava said in an e-mail on Friday. “We had a lot of rain this year.”

Despite the increase, Bumi Resources’ first-half production was less than half of what it projected for the full year. The company set its coal production target at 75 million tons this year.

Typically, heavy rainfall will affect production at coal and oil and gas mining sites. Indonesian coal miners, including Bumi Resources and rivals like Adaro Energy and Harum Energy, have their mining sites in Kalimantan, an island rich in natural resources such as coal and oil.

In Kalimantan, coal and oil miners have open-pit coal mines — as compared to an underground operation. Because of that design, greater-than-expected rainfall negatively affects mining.

Dileep said Bumi would boost production in the second half of this year, so that it could meet its full-year target.

He said that coal sales at Bumi rose 10.2 percent to 32.2 million tons in the first half of this year from 29.3 million in the same period last year.

The average selling price of Bumi coal fell to $88.4 per ton this year, from $91.3 per ton in the same period a year earlier.

Thamrin Sihite, director general of minerals and coal at the Energy Ministry, said on Wednesday that the country’s coal production was set at 332 million tons this year.

Indonesian coal firms produced 150 million metric tons in the first half of 2012.

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