Tempo, Jakarta – Indonesia's Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia has claimed that the supply issue for medium-rank coal for steam power plants (PLTU) has been fully resolved.

"Currently, all coal [supplies] are in progress, so there are no more disruptions," stated Bahlil after inaugurating the PT Sumber Aneka Gas Mini LNG Plant in Tuban, East Java, on Thursday, June 25, 2026, as reported by Antara.

This statement came against the backdrop of power disruptions across several regions, caused by the challenges faced with medium-rank coal, particularly with specifications around 5,200 kcal per kg GAR required by PLN's power plants.

Bahlil said the government has established a special team to oversee the coal procurement process for the state-owned electricity company PLN to prevent the recurrence of supply issues that could potentially disrupt the national energy resilience.

In line with Bahlil's statement, the President Director of PLN Darmawan Prasodjo said coal distribution for PLTUs is proceeding smoothly.

Moving forward, Darmawan said PLN will improve the coal supply chain management to ensure the electricity system across Java is smooth-running and consistently improved.

Earlier, Bahlil attributed the shortage of coal supply at PLN to the dominance of low-rank coal reserves, which led to a more inefficient fuel consumption in power plants. According to Bahlil, power plants require a medium-rank coal mixture to maintain operational efficiency.

Nevertheless, observers believed the Indonesian government's move to cull national coal production did not help with the problem. Yayan Satyakti, an energy economics lecturer at Padjajaran University, said the decision to cut the production target under the 2026 coal work plan and budget (RKAB) narrowed the room for production.

In 2026, the government set a production target of 600 million tons, lower than the realization of coal production in the previous year, which amounted to 790 million tons.

Amidst these production cramps, the much-needed medium-rank coal is absorbed primarily by the export market, while the domestic market obligation (DMO) scheme is fulfilled mostly by low-rank coal.

Indonesia allocated 190 million tons of coal per year under the DMO scheme, while PLN requires 154 million tons annually.

"The electricity crisis is primarily caused by the failure of supply planning and production, while pricing policy emerges as a distrotion which exacerbates the root cause of the problem," Yayan said.

– Nandito Putra contributed to the writing of this article

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/2110472/bahlil-says-coal-supply-crunch-at-pln-resolved-why-did-it-happe