PLN Boss Asks For Additional Coal Supply Of 7.7 Million Metric Tons, Impacts Entrepreneurs Reluctant To Send Supply?

JAKARTA - President Director of PT PLN (Persero) Darmawan Prasodjo requested an additional 7.7 million metric tons of coal. Darmawan said, this need follows the high price disparity between domestic coal which has an impact on the decline in coal supply. Not only that, this need is also driven by high economic growth so that it also encourages the increase in electricity demand.

"With the current high price disparity, we see the trend of the coal stockpile at PLN decreasing and this is what we detect that some supplies are also decreasing. This is also accompanied by a recovery in economic conditions and our efforts to increase electricity demand, namely an increase in electricity demand. demand is 5.3 TWh. For that we need an additional 7.7 million metric tons of coal," explained Dharmawan in a working meeting at Commission VII Jakarta, Tuesday, August 9.

Meanwhile, he continued, his party has also renegotiated with Independent Power Producers (IPP) or private generators to reduce electricity production.

"To overcome demand growth and in the process, we renegotiated the IPP, which previously we had to deal with oversupply, we managed to reduce it. We succeeded in producing electricity from an Independent Power Producer which automatically reduced our take or pay accompanied by an increase in utilization, so there was an additional 7.7 million metric tons," continued Darmawan.

Previously, on the same occasion, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Arifin Tasrif said that so far the realization of coal distribution volume to PLN has only reached 8.03 million tons from the 18.89 million tons required to be fulfilled by 123 companies.

"There have been 123 assignment letters issued to mining business entities with a total assignment volume of 18.89 million tons with the realization as of July 8.03 million tons from 52 companies," he said in a Working Meeting with Commission VII DPR on Tuesday, August 9.

Arifin also detailed several reasons why the company did not or had not fulfilled its obligations, including, among others, there were 5 companies that were constrained by extreme weather, 12 companies that supplied coal not according to their needs, 2 companies whose mines had not yet started operating due to land problems, 4 companies had difficulty getting a mode of transportation. coal and there are 48 companies that have not reported.

"The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources continues to monitor the commitment of business entities that have not carried out assignments by imposing sanctions on business entities that do not carry out assignments without clear information. Then the export feature on the Minerba Online Monitoring System (MOMS) application will be blocked," Arifin continued.

Arifin continued, currently many companies prefer to pay fines instead of supplying coal to PLN because of the high price disparity between the DMO price and the market price.