PLN PLANNING TO IMPORT COAL FROM AUSTRALIA

Jakarta, Nov 5 (ANTARA) - State-owned electricity company PLN is planning to import 300,000 tons of coal from Australia following an increase in coal prices at home, a PLN executive said.
PLN head for coal energy affairs Pudji Widodo said here on Tuesday the company had placed orders with 24 coal producers in Australia.
"We are planning to import coal in order to meet our need for the fuel for our thermal power plants (PLTUs) in Suralaya, Tanjung Jati B and Paiton," he said.
Widodo said the PLTUs would be operated by PT Paiton Energy Company from December 2008 to March 2009.
He said coal producers at home had set their price at US$116 per ton while the price of coal to be imported from Australia was only US$94 per ton.
Widodo said the specifications of the Australian coal were well-suited to the ovens of PLN's power plants so there would be no problem in using the imported coal.
"Should there be a problem, the Australian coal can still be mixed with existing stocks," he added.
Besides placing orders with Australian coal producers, PLN was also exploring the possibility of importing coal from other countries, including China and India.
He said actually PT PLN was facing critical coal stocks for four major electricity plants, both those operated by PLN and those by private firms.
Widodo said coal stocks for PLTU plants in Paiton, Suralaya, Tanjung Jati B, and Cilacap were under standards, namely only for 30 days.
"We are facing difficulties in increasing the volumes of coal stocks," Widodo said adding that besides operational disturbances, the difficulties in increasing coal stocks were also caused by high coal prices at home.
But he said his company would take the necessary steps to increase stocks in order to anticipate coal shipment disruptions caused by high seawaves in January.
"We want to increase coal stocks in Java to a level where they will be enough for two months. We don't want power cuts to occur again," he added.
***2***