Photo: Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Menko Marves) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan at the Mandiri Investment Forum 2023. (Bloomberg via Getty Images/Bloomberg)
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Menko Marves) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan has finally opened up about Air Products and Chemicals, Inc’s withdrawal from two coal downstream cooperation projects in Indonesia.
According to Luhut, currently the government is holding important discussions regarding the continuation of Indonesia’s coal gasification program, following Air Products’ exit from the project that President Joko Widodo is proud of. Even so, he did not go into detail about this.
“I think there are still some technical (discussions) that need to be completed. We’ll see later (regarding the replacement),” Luhut said when met in Jakarta, Tuesday (14/3/2023).
As is well known, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc apparently has not only left the cooperation project with PTBA and Pertamina regarding coal gasification dimethyl ether (DME). The company even decided to leave other coal downstream projects in Indonesia.
Acting Director General of Mineral and Coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Idris Sihite, revealed that the giant US company had decided not to resume two coal downstream projects in Indonesia. One of them is with PT Kaltim Prima Coal and PT Arutmin Indonesia regarding the coal to methanol gasification project.
“Yes, he also withdrew (the project with KPC),” said Idris when met at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Building, Thursday (9/3/2023).
However, Idris ensured that the domestic coal downstream project would still continue. This is because the downstream obligation has been mandated in Law No. 3 of 2020 concerning Mineral and Coal Mining (UU Minerba), especially for PKP2B whose contracts have received an extension to become IUPK.
“Between PTBA and Air Products is a business scheme that may not meet economic aspects and so on, even though there is a plan to substitute LPG import dependency, for downstreaming, Air Products and other products must continue to run downstream,” he said.
In addition, according to Idris, the government has also collected several coal companies that have downstream obligations. Especially to remind them that their commitment to running downstream domestically is not slack.
“The day before yesterday we gathered the coal companies that had the downstream obligation and demanded their commitment because the extension required the downstream program,” he said.
(pgr/pgr)
