Rainfall caused a decline in Indonesia's coal production and exports in the first quarter

Comprehensive media reported that due to the impact of rainfall on coal production in Indonesia's first-quarter coal production below target, the Indonesia Coal Association **Bob Kamandanu said.

In an interview at the Coal Upgrading & Conversion Conference in Singapore today, Kamandanu said that Indonesia’s coal production in March increased to 32.43 million tons, while January and February coal production was 29.54 million tons and 27.15 million tons, respectively. The average monthly production in the first quarter was 29.7 million tons, which was a drop from the average monthly output of 30 million tons in the same period of last year. The monthly target production this year was about 3,000 tons.

Kamandanu said that because there was not much change in coal production during the rainy season, we expect to see a truly dry climate this year and it was mostly rainy last year.

Indonesia's coal production this year may increase to 335 million tons to 370 million tons, while Indonesia's coal production climbed from 283 million tons in 2009 to 325 million tons in 2010, he said at the meeting.

According to calculations by Kamandanu, Indonesia’s coal exports fell by 5.9% to 68.8 million tons in the first quarter from 73.1 million tons in the same period last year, due to delays in issuing trading permits earlier this year by the Indonesian government.

In March, Indonesia’s coal exports increased from 20.3 million tons in February to 25.8 million tons.