Indonesian: Government to reduce Coal Production Capacity

Indonesia, the biggest coal exporter may cut the coal production to sustain its economic growth.

As Indonesian Energy Minister recently said that the government wants to cut the national coal production, as coal is the matter with union negotiations.

Although coal exports are the main driving force of economic growth in Indonesia, but the Indonesian government realized that in order to boost coal exports and sustain a stable economic growth they might have to cut coal production.

Indonesia is having coal reserves of 280 million tonnes (MnT), the current annual production capacity is 400 MnT of coal, of which 330 MnT of coal is exported in 2012. If the coal consumption will be at the same pace, then after 70 years, the Indonesian coal reserve will be exhausted completely.

So in order to avoid over-exploitation of coal resources, the Indonesian government had to consider for long-term measures so that coal overuse should be slowed down. The Government hopes that Indonesia by 2050 can strive to become a coal import dependent country rather than coal export dependent country.