JAKARTA: Coal miner Indika Energy announced here the other day that it had injected US$30 million for its Singapore-based subsidiary to help the latter develop its coal-trading business.
Jakarta-listed Indika said an official statement published on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) website on Tuesday night said that two of its units had signed a loan agreement last Friday.
The agreement stated that its investment unit, Indika Inti Corpindo, had agreed to channel $30 million of loans to coal-trading unit Indika Capital Investments (ICI), Indika’s wholly owned subsidiary based in Singapore.
Indika said that $25 million would be for ICI to expand its trading business, while the remainder would be channeled later depending on ICI’s needs.
In a previous statement made in February, the company said that it would gradually channel $65 million in loans to ICI, sourced from loans granted to the parent company by lender Citibank’s Jakarta branch
“The loans are given on the back of ICI’s ability to market mining products and its strong network in connecting producers and buyers,” the statement read.
Coal trading contributed around 12.2 percent of the company’s total revenue of $1.11 billion in 2014, the third largest contributor after its mining contractor unit Petrosea and oil and gas engineering, procurement and construction unit Tripatra. Petrosea and Tripatra contributed 38 percent and 31 percent, respectively.
The company’s business comprises coal mining, mining infrastructure and energy services.
In the first quarter of 2015, Indika Energy boosted its revenue by 30.19 percent year-on-year to $314.34 million, mostly supported by a surge in its coal sales.
Sales of coal rose fivefold from $16.92 million during the first three months of 2014 to $81.08 million in the same period this year.
Net profits increased by nearly 50 percent between January and March last year.
The company’s bottom line improved after it ended last year’s financial performance in the red with $27.58 million in net losses, after registering a net loss of $53.8 million in the previous year on the back of slumping coal prices and rising expenses.
Indika Energy, as recently reported, has decided to withdraw from a mega power plant project that was initially estimated to cost about $1.4 billion, due to financial difficulties from continuous losses.
Indika had been planning to work on a 1,000-megawatt (MW) power plant through a consortium that included the Marubeni Corporation, South Korean electricity production and supply company Korea Midland Power and South Korean resources and energy company the Santan Corporation.
The company previously said that it aimed to have around a 25 to 30 percent stake in the project.
The company’s cash balance as of December 2014 stood at around $411 million, while its debt reached $1.02 billion.
On the back of financing difficulties, Indika decided to divert its portion in the consortium to Indika Mitra Energi (IME). IME holds a 63.5-percent stake in the company.
