JAKARTA: State electricity firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) is short of 20 million tonnes of coal to meet its annual operational needs, even as the government has ordered producers to supply 190 million tonnes to shore up stocks, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia says.
Speaking before House of Represen-tatives Commission XII overseeing energy and natural resources in a meeting at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta, Bahlil detailed the gap between contracted supply and actual demand.
PLN actually requires 154 million tonnes of coal annually to fuel its steam-driven power plants, but has secured contracts for only 134 million tonnes.
“This means that of PLN’s total requirement of 154 million tonnes (for electricity generation), 134 million have been contracted.
“So, there are 20 million tonnes left that have not been contracted,” Bahlil told lawmakers.
The Golkar Party chairman outlined the figures following a marathon 5.5-hour coordination meeting among his ministry, PLN president director Darmawan Prasodjo and the company’s board of directors.
The session aimed to resolve supply uncertainties amid public alarm over a series of rolling blackouts across Java.
Bahlil also acknowledged that PLN increasingly requires higher-quality, medium-calorie coal for efficient power plant operations, a type of coal that is becoming scarce in the domestic market.
In a bid to plug the remaining gap and prevent future supply disruptions, President Prabowo Subianto has instructed a crackdown on procurement governance.
Bahlil said a dedicated supervisory team would be formed, drawing in the PLN procurement team, the energy ministry’s inspector general, the minerals and coal director general, as well as the Development Finance Comptroller.
The supply shortage has unfolded against a backdrop of rolling blackouts that have sparked public frustration across Java.
Outages lasting between one and five hours have hit major urban centres, including Bandung, Jakarta and Cileungsi, disrupting businesses and households alike.
Despite the contract gap, Bahlil has dismissed claims that the blackouts stemmed from coal scarcity at coal power plants.
He insisted that domestic supply under the Domestic Market Obligation policy remains adequate, with producer assignments already reaching 170 million tonnes.
The minister attributed the grid disturbances instead to technical failures at several power plant units currently being handled by PLN.
However, according to the Institute for Essential Services Reform, disruption at a single power plant or transmission component in the interconnected Java-Madura-Bali grid was unlikely to have triggered the widespread blackouts given PLN’s 30% reserve margin, protection systems and network redundancies.
The think tank suggested the outages may have stemmed from a combination of factors, including low coal inventories at several power plants and generation disruptions such as those reported at the Jawa 1 gas-fired power plant.
The energy ministry has slashed its coal production target in the 2026 annual production plan, projecting output of around 600 million tonnes, a sharp decline from the 817.48 million tonnes produced last year. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
