JAKARTA, July 29 (Xinhua): Indonesia has recorded an investment of 2.3 billion U.S. dollars in a coal-to-methanol downstream project expected to produce 2 million tonnes of methanol annually, the Ministry of Investment and Downstream Industry said Wednesday.

The project will use about 7.78 million tonnes of low-calorific-value coal each year, said Rizwan Aryadi Ramadhan, the ministry's director of mineral and coal downstreaming.

"We encourage this project to strengthen national technological independence and create knowledge-based added value through technology transfer," Rizwan said at the signing of a front-end engineering design contract and an engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning framework agreement in Jakarta.

The project, being developed by PT Bumi Etam Chemical, an Indonesian coal downstream company, in East Kutai regency, East Kalimantan province, will convert coal into methanol through gasification.

It has entered the basic engineering stage and is expected to proceed to construction afterward.
The government expects the project's investment value to increase further as development progresses.

Photo from Reuters