Buma blues
Indonesian publicly listed coal mining service provider Delta Dunia Makmur, through its subsidiary Bukit Makmur Mandiri Utama, or Buma for short, is trying to keep its head above water in a tough coal market.
The Jakarta Post quoted Delta Dunia director Errinto Pardede saying the Indonesian coal mining business was quite gloomy as there was no sign of recovery in global coal prices.
According to the company’s financial report Buma’s capital spend in the first quarter of 2014 was cut by 25% to $US3 million ($A3.2 million) from $4 million in the same quarter last year.
That said, Buma still managed to record a $13 million net profit in the first quarter, a turnaround from its $1 million net loss in the same quarter last year.
China hopes
BHP Billiton is counting on Chinese demand for energy and fertiliser to take up the slack of a softening steel sector, the Financial Times reports.
It says the Anglo-Australian mining group spent the past few years ramping up iron ore growth but last week cut jobs at its iron ore division.
Demand for coal will probably remain strong despite policies favouring other fuels.
Coal makes up 67% of China’s power generation, a share Beijing expects to slip to 65% by 2017, the FT says.
“We probably need more coal, not less,” the paper quotes BHP Billiton chief Andrew Mackenzie saying.
Kentucky shift
It is the state that ranks number one in the US in carbon emissions per unit of electricity produced from all sources. Even so there is a feeling that the US Environmental Protection Agency’s tough emissions rules will not be as devastating as some had predicted.
In an article in the New York Times, Louisville representative John Yarmuth said the state had already been moving towards a future less reliant on coal because of competition from cheaper, cleaner natural gas.
“If you add all the numbers up we can probably comply with the terms of the rule with very little impact, if any, because everybody’s heading in that direction to begin with,” he said.
“Anybody who’s actually looked at the subject understands coal is going to play a dramatically reduced role in our nation’s energy portfolio.”
