Indonesia's power plans expected to boost coal market

Jakarta

THE coal market's best hope of breaking a four-year losing streak may be its biggest supplier's plan to burn more at home.

Indonesia plans to expand generating capacity by 46 per cent in four years with new power plants, half of them burning coal. If that happens, fuel consumption may triple to the equivalent of 76 per cent of last year's exports and boost prices more than 50 per cent, the Indonesia Coal Mining Association says.

The country currently consumes less electricity than Taiwan, a nation with about a 10th of its population. Benchmark Asian coal prices fell every year since 2010 after producers from Australia to Colombia flooded …