Shipping Grief Behind the Ban on Coal Exports Page all

AFTER was banned, finally export coal return is allowed. But this policy is conditional, addressed to both miners and PLN.

From the shipping side, ships that are allowed to operate again transporting coal are still limited to those that are stuck in loading ports scattered throughout the island of Kalimantan since the new stone export ban was enforced on December 31, 2021.

The number is more than a hundred units. The amount of coal that will be transported by the ships is estimated by various media to be around 6 million tons.

Initially, the national shipping circle targeted that much coal because it was said that it would be allocated for domestic power generation needs.

However, with the re-permission of coal exports, it seems that their wish cannot be realized.

This condition seems to be due to the fact that there is a buyer for the coal, complete with the ship that will transport it.

Or, it could also be because the vessels owned by national shipping companies are not sufficient to transport the “vomit” commodity that suddenly becomes available.

The current national fleet of coal carriers operating on average is in the form of barges of various sizes.

Just for the record, barges typically range in size from 180 feet to 300 feet.

The first type has a carrying capacity of 2,000 tons, while the second type can accommodate 8,000 tons.

Between the two types there are other types: 230 feet (4,000 tons capacity) and 270 feet (6,000 tons).

Please simulate yourself how many barges will be needed to transport the vomit coal which amounts to 6 million tons.

Coal exports have so far been carried out with the following scheme: free on board. This means that coal miners or national miners only sell commodities, while the transportation/shipping is handled by the buyers themselves.

The ships for these buyers are quite large, averaging around 60,000 metric tons or just tons. The type of ship is a bulker and of course a foreign flag.

The government’s policy of prohibiting the export of coal that is only a few days old has caused grief for shipping companies.

The impact will be quite long. For example, ship operators/owners have to spend around 20,000 to 40,000 US dollars per day for demurrage.

It was stated earlier that the number of ships that were not allowed to lift anchor was more than a hundred units.

Can you imagine how big the total penalty for the delay in loading and unloading the operator has to pay? consignee them? Yes, millions of US dollars aggregate-nya.

Then, there is the possibility – and this is quite a big chance – of legal feuds between the parties: miners, buyers and transporters.

My guess is that they will clash over whether the government’s ban on coal exports is a force majeure or not.

The parties will compete to claim that the ban is force majeure so that the parties can evade their respective obligations.

If a miner, he will claim the condition in order to be able to sell his coal to another buyer whose price is higher than what he had sold to the original buyer.

If he is a carrier, he will claim that the government’s policy of prohibiting his ship from anchoring is force majeure so you can be free from paying demurrage.

And so on. The chain will be long. If the dispute between the parties was limited and closed between them, perhaps it would not be a serious problem.

But when they clash in court, this is only serious. Because it could be that Indonesia’s image will be carried away; carried away negatively.

As a port country or port state Indonesia can be judged to have no respect for the contracts of transportation that have been made with the policy of banning coal exports.

There will be no action whatsoever from those who were in conflict earlier or other stakeholders.

At most it’s just a byword but this is enough to keep our ‘bad image’ in their eyes all this time: often breaking contracts even though agreements are to be kept. There is no legal certainty.

From the case of the existing coal export ban, I get the impression that the shipping aspect is not of much concern to the officials involved in the formulation of the prohibition policy.

In fact, the transportation aspect is very much related to the ban.

The problem has now spread to the shipping sector. As the saying goes “because a speck of tilapia spoils a pot of milk”.

Everything that has been done by the Ministry of Transportation related to the ban is purely reactive. It’s like putting out a fire after it’s already blazed into a fire.

The agency should act when policy the prohibition was issued by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources by proposing to his colleagues to be selective.

Not like now; everything is shaken up.

Evidently, many of the miners who are prohibited from exporting have actually fulfilled their domestic market obligation (DMO) to PLN/IPP.

Even distribution of treatment between ships that have complied with the DMO and have not yet issued a sailing approval letter (SPB) clearly sends a bad signal to the international maritime community. Who knows.

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