PT Indo Tambangraya Megah Tbk recently commissioned SRK to conduct an independent review of the resources, reserves and mining operations of all the company’s coal mining assets in Indonesia, to support an initial public offering of shares on the Jakarta Stock Exchange.
This is the latest step in SRK’s continuous involvement with the parent company, Banpu Public Company Limited, based in Thailand.
Beginning in 2001, SRK assisted in evaluating the acquisition of several major concessions in Indonesia; the company that resulted is now ranked third in Indonesia in terms of coal production. Subsequently, SRK has carried out various audits and independent reviews of the resources and reserves for several of their coal producing projects.
Previous estimates, which were carried out to meet various international classification systems, were not consistent from mine to mine. This has resulted from asset acquisitions from different companies.
However, the geological and engineering staffs are professionally qualified and trained and use methods of data gathering, modeling and assessment that are well established and accepted internationally within the coal industry. Under SRK’s guidance, the company is now standardizing internal procedures to provide a consistent base of information to international standards, upon which senior management and investors can thoroughly rely, based on the principles and definitions of the Australian Code for reporting Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (the JORC coal reporting code).
SRK reviewed the quantity and quality of the underlying data and the methodologies used by the company to derive its previous resource and reserve estimates and made adjustments as appropriate. Full account was taken of current best international practice; projected future operating costs; capital expenditure and reserve depletion schedules; and socio-economic and environmental issues that must be addressed both during the life of the coal operations and after closure.
SRK has an established and proven track record in providing evaluations to bankable standards within the mining finance sector world-wide, and will hopefully continue to assist with the standardization of reporting of information for Banpu as it does for all its clients.
