Bloomberg Adaro Energy Expects Higher Selling Prices for Coal This Year

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- PT Adaro Energy, Indonesia’s second- largest coal producer by output, expects to sell more of the fuel at higher prices this year. “We’ve secured prices for 80 percent of our contracts for 2009, and the prices are higher than last year,” President Boy Garibaldi Thohir said in an interview today, declining to give
any price details. The mining company negotiates prices annually with long-term buyers.

Coal prices soared to a record in July last year driven by demand from China and supply disruptions, boosting the earnings of coal producers. Adaro said last week net income surged 10- fold last year on increased output and higher prices. Thohir, 43, maintained the company’s outlook forecast of between 42 million metric tons and 45 million tons for this year, which may help earnings before interest charges, tax and depreciation to “rise significantly” from 2008. Adaro produced 38.5 million tons last year.

The weekly index for coal from Newcastle in Australia, the world’s largest port for the fuel, rose to a record $192.50 a ton in the week to July 4 last year. The gauge has since fallen 68 percent to $61 a ton last week, according to the McCloskey
Group Ltd. Last year’s average price of $129 a ton was 91 percent higher than the $66.91 mean in 2007.

Adaro may spend as much as $100 million to buy a barging and ship-loading company to reduce costs and improve efficiency, the company said in March. The coal producer is also studying a plan to build a conveyor belt linking its mine pit in South
Kalimantan province to a nearby river port, Thohir said. “The only one missing at the moment in our transport link is the barging,” said Thohir. “Then I think we are complete. I want to become like Shenhua, only they do it with rail and us using river transport.”

China Shenhua Energy Co., the nation’s biggest coal producer, is an integrated company with investments including a coal and power project in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province.
For Related News and Information:
Adaro’s financial analysis: ADRO IJ FA
Stock index One-Year Price Graph: JCI GP
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