Building Coal-to-Gas Plant, PTBA Uses Clean Technology

Tanjung Enim, CNBC Indonesia - President Prabowo Subianto has just inaugurated the start of construction, or groundbreaking, for 13 second-phase downstreaming projects with a total estimated investment value of Rp116 trillion.

One of the projects inaugurated is the coal downstreaming project into Dimethyl Ether (DME) in Tanjung Enim, South Sumatra.

This DME project was initiated by Danantara and executed jointly by three State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), namely the Mining SOE Holding MIND ID, PT Bukit Asam Tbk (PTBA), and PT Pertamina (Persero).

Director of Downstreaming and Product Diversification at PT Bukit Asam Tbk (PTBA), Turino Yulianto, emphasised that this coal-to-DME downstreaming project is part of the National Strategic Project (PSN) that plays an important role, particularly in strengthening national energy resilience.

He stated that the project uses clean coal technology capable of reducing emissions by 30-40% compared to direct coal combustion.

“This project uses what is termed clean coal technology, where emissions can drop by 30-40% compared to just burning coal directly,” he explained during the groundbreaking event for the Second-Phase Coal Downstreaming Project to develop coal into Dimethyl Ether (DME) in Tanjung Enim, South Sumatra, on Wednesday (29/4/2026).

Turino explained that the DME plant will process 7 million tonnes of coal into 1.4 million tonnes of DME or equivalent to 1 million tonnes of LPG per year.

This means that the coal-to-DME downstreaming project will contribute to reducing LPG imports by around 1 million tonnes per year. As is known, Indonesia still imports about 7 million tonnes of LPG annually.

The DME product will later be absorbed by PT Pertamina (Persero) through PT Pertamina Patra Niaga.

Furthermore, he added that the coal to be processed is low-rank coal or low-calorie coal that has not been optimally utilised so far, while its availability in Indonesia is abundant.

“So, it’s coal that hasn’t been utilised so far and there’s a lot of it in Indonesia. So once this project runs, God willing, if it continues to develop, we can utilise low-rank coal in Indonesia. For 1.4 million tonnes of DME, we use 7 million tonnes of coal per year,” he said.