The government is required to speed up policies to attract new investments because power generation supply will grow significantly starting this year. From the ambitious 35,000 MW program, about 8,823 MW of new capacity will enter commercial operation this year, followed by another 5,066 MW next year.

The government has lowered its thermal coal reference price at US$66.89 a ton in February, up 1.45% from US$65.93 a ton in January, as coal supply from China declined. Also, the coronavirus affects the lower coal supply. Coal supply from Australia also fell due to forest fires accident. Coal demand rose along with the winter in China, Japan, and South Korea.

Global mineral player Glencore Plc has acquired 606.73 million shares of bauxite miner PT Cita Mineral Tbk (CITA), from controlling shareholder PT Harita Jayaraya, a company owned by Harita Group. Cita Mineral, one of the most profitable miners in the first nine months of 2019, will also issue new shares to Glencore, which has copper, cobalt, zinc, lead, gold, silver, ferrochrome, and nickel in its portfolio.

PT Freeport Indonesia (PT-FI) is one of the largest companies in Indonesia with combined revenues of US$6.23 billion from copper and gold sales in 2018. Last year, however, the combined sales revenues fell sharply to US$3.19 billion, nearly 50%, due to the end of 30-year operation of open pit mine.

Crude oil fell 0.2% to US$58.71 per barrel on Thursday (Jan 16), falling 3.68% on a monthly basis but rising 9.12% on a yearly basis. Oil prices fell on doubts the US-China trade deal will spur world growth and boost crude demand.

Crude palm oil (CPO) retreated RM43 to RM3,091 per ton for March 2020 contracts on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Monday (Jan 13). The commodity might remain strong this year because of supply-demand balance. Some Malaysian planters reported substantially lower FFB harvest and CPO production last month.

Indonesia sacrificed over US$1 billion of export revenues from nickel ores following effective implementation of export ban on January 1st. Full impact to nickel price, however, will take sometime because of relatively high inventory of nickel ores in China, which is related to aggressive export by Indonesian miners in the last three months of 2019.

Oil and gas lifting realization during 2019 only reached 1.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), far from the target of 2.02 million boepd set by the government. The upstream oil and gas regulator (SKK Migas) said the figure was equivalent to 90.5% of the 2019 state budget target.

So, the benchmark March 2020 contracts of crude palm oil (CPO) advanced by more than two percents to RM3,113 per ton on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives yesterday. Indonesian government’s expanded mandatory biodiesel program might have contributed to the rally.