Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has set its thermal coal benchmark price (HBA) for October at USD 64.80 per metric ton (MT) — the lowest since October 2016.
Notably, this current reference price is lower by 1.5% on a month-to-month basis, as compared to USD 65.79/MT in the previous month of September 2019.
Further, it’s lower by 35.8% on a year-on-year basis, as compared to USD 100.89/MT in the month of October 2018.
The Indonesian thermal coal benchmark price has mostly declined every month since September 2018. In August 2018, the HBA had hit a record high of USD 107.83/MT.
“With continuing fall in prices, small-scale coal producers would be hit, they would not be able to boost their production,” Kontan News reported last week, quoting Bambang Gatot Ariyono, director general of mineral and coal at the Ministry of Energy & Mineral Resources (ESDM).
Interestingly enough, Bambang still stated that the country’s coal production target of 530 million metric tons (MnT) would be attainable this year, although it is much lower than the actual production of 557 MnT last year.
The HBA price for thermal coal, locally known as Harga Batubara Acuan, is the basis for determining the prices of 77 Indonesian coal products and calculating the royalty required to be paid by miners for each metric ton of coal sold.
It is based on 6,322 kcal/kg GAR coal with 8% total moisture content, 15% ash and 0.8% sulfur as received.
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