JAKARTA,REDAKSI17.COM – President Prabowo Subianto received a report on developments in industrial downstreaming, national energy resilience, and electricity supply stability during a meeting with Energy and Mineral Resources Minister (ESDM) Bahlil Lahadalia and several ministers of the Merah Putih Cabinet at the Merdeka Palace on Monday (22/6).
In a statement after the meeting, Bahlil said one of the main discussions was an evaluation of the downstreaming programme, including progress on the electric vehicle battery ecosystem project resulting from cooperation between CATL and Antam.
“Our downstreaming programme for the car battery ecosystem in collaboration between CATL and Antam has been completed and, God willing, will be inaugurated at the end of July,” Bahlil said.
In addition to downstreaming, the meeting also discussed national energy resilience. Bahlil said the government ensures that national energy reserves remain in a safe condition.
“Our energy resilience is on average above the 20-day minimum,” Bahlil said.
In the meeting, the government also reported on the condition of the national electricity supply, including an evaluation of coal supply for power generation needs of PT PLN (Persero).
Bahlil said PLN’s coal consumption reaches around 154 million tonnes per year.
Meanwhile, coal supply assignments from the Ministry of ESDM to companies for PLN’s needs are said to be in the range of 180 million to 190 million tonnes, with contracts signed by PLN amounting to 134 million tonnes.
According to him, in terms of contract volume, coal supply should not be a problem. However, PLN is said to face challenges in coal quality, particularly the need for medium-calorific-value coal for blending purposes.
Bahlil said the government has taken steps to help PLN ensure electricity services to the public continue to run. The government has also asked PLN to carry out maintenance promptly so that service disruptions do not recur.
“We have ensured that there are no problems, and the government has assisted PLN so that services to the public continue to run. However, more importantly, we have asked PLN to carry out maintenance immediately so that it can truly provide certainty of service to the public,” he said.
To oversee the issue, Bahlil said the government has formed a coal procurement team involving PLN, the Directorate General of Mineral and Coal, the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP), and the Inspectorate General.
According to Bahlil, this step was taken to prevent similar issues from recurring and to tighten oversight of coal supply for power generation.
Bahlil added that Prabowo has instructed the relevant ministries to take measured steps promptly so that issues that could potentially disrupt electricity services do not happen again.
“The direction from President Prabowo to us is to immediately ensure measured steps in order to accelerate efforts so that incidents like this do not happen again,” Bahlil said.
