Indonesia's Bukit Asam to Invest $464.28M this Year
PT Bukit Asam Tbk, PT Pertamina and United States' Air Product Launched the Coal Downstream Plant into Dimethyl Ether (DME) in Peranap mine, Riau, on Thursday (02/07) - Photo by PTBA

JAKARTA (TheInsiderStories) – Indonesian coal miner, PT Bukit Asam Tbk (IDX: PTBA), PT Pertamina and United States’ Air Product and Chemicals launched the coal downstream plant into Dimethyl Ether (DME) in Peranap mine, Riau, on Thursday (02/07). The plant has a capacity of 1.4 million tons (MT) of DME per year with coal needs of 9.2 MT per annum.

The company explained, this DME will be used by state-owned energy producer’ Pertamina as liquefied petroleum gas substitution to reduce imports.

According to Arviyan Arifin, the CEO of Bukit Asam, the selecting mining area in Peranap as the location of coal gasification because it has large reserves of low calorie coal. With the existence of this coal gasification project, it will certainly revive and optimize the role of Peranap coal for national energy security and community welfare.

To reminder, last January, the third parties has signed a joint cooperation to build coal gasification project in Pranap followed the Memorandum of Understanding in Allentown, United Stated on Nov. 7, 2018. Furthermore the three companies wset up joint venture company to make coal into DME.

He explained, through the gasification, the coal will be converted to syngas, and to be processed again into the end-product. Air Products and Chemical will be responsible for optimising the processing technology, Bukit Asam will supply the coal, and Pertamina will contain the processed coal.
“This downstream is strengthened with 8.3 billion tons coal resources and 3.3 billion tons coal reserve,” said Arifin by adding the DME as a substitute of LPG raw material, that’ Indonesia mostly imported.
CEO of Pertamina Nicke Widyawati, added so far Indonesia imports 73 percent of LPG raw material. So, the coal gasification is a very strategic project to national energy sovereignty, according to her.
Written by Daniel Deha, Email: theinsiderstories@gmail.com

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