Jakarta,-Indonesia is approaching several Chinese companies to continue the coal downstream project or coal gasification into Dimethyl Ether (DME) in Muara Enim, South Sumatra (South Sumatra).

PT Bukit Asam Tbk (PTBA) is doing this after the US-based company Air Products and Chemicals Inc. withdrew from the project.

PTBA President Director Arsal Ismail said that with the withdrawal of Air Products, PTBA remains committed to supporting the downstream programmed by the government to become DME.

"We are exploring with several Chinese companies, and while we are exploring this, we also focus not only on DME, we also focus on other derivatives of ethanol, methanol. We are also conducting a study," said Arsal Ismail, quoted on Monday (11/3/2024).

Meanwhile, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif explained Air Products' decision to no longer continue the coal downstream cooperation project in Indonesia due to several considerations. One of them is because business development in America is more attractive than in Indonesia.

"Air Products decided not to continue the coal downstream project because they felt that business development in the United States was more attractive," Arifin said when met at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources building some time ago.

In addition, the US government also has attractive offers in the form of subsidies, especially for the development of new and renewable energy (EBT) projects.

For the record, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. not only withdrew from the cooperation project with PTBA and Pertamina related to coal gasification into DME. Air Products also decided to leave other coal downstream projects in Indonesia.

Sources : djakarta-miningclub.com Mar 19.24