Coal development faces many problems in Indonesia

Coal development faces many problems in Indonesia

JAKARTA (JP): Expanding the use of coal in Indonesia still
faces several problems related to regional spatial plans and
environmental issues and lack of inter-ministerial coordination,
a senior official said yesterday.

Director General of Electricity and Energy Development Zuhal
said that the government is encountering growing environmental
concerns in its efforts to expand the use of coal.

"Therefore, clean coal technology should be applied to enhance
its role in the future. The problem, though, is that such
technology is very expensive," he said at a three-day seminar on
energy starting yesterday.

He noted that Indonesia held about 36 billion tons of coal
deposits but 60 percent of them are of low quality.

C.J. Johnson, the head of the East-West Center Coal Project in
Hawaii said that the growth in Indonesian coal exports is
expected to slow down after 2000 as the domestic market begins to
absorb much of the new capacity and less competitive deposits are
developed.

"The exports are not projected to exceed 50 million tons and,
according to our medium projection, they will decrease after
about 2000 or 2005," he told the seminar.

He noted that Indonesia's coal production is projected to
reach 75 million tons by 2000 and 125 million tons by 2015.

"Indonesia, China, India and Australia are expected to
dominate the growth in coal production over the next two decades,
accounting for 97 percent of the increase in Asia's production,"
he said.

Johnson said that Indonesia's total domestic electricity
generation capacity of about 25 gigawatts (GW) over the 1981-1983
period is projected to reach 35 GW in 2000 and over 80 GW in
2015.

Coal's share in the generation capacity is projected to grow
by an average of 12 percent per year, from 3.5 GW in 1995 to 10
GW in 2000 and 35 GW in 2015, he added.

He said as a percentage of Indonesia's total energy mix,
coal's share is projected to increase from 11 percent this year
to 16 percent in 2000 and 21 percent in 2015. (04)