Indonesia is predominantly a thermal-coal producer serving power generation and industrial boilers; metallurgical coal represents a comparatively small part of the country’s production and export mix. Indonesia entered 2026 with the coal market expecting a government-led correction after two years of exceptionally high output. Policymakers signalled tighter RKAB approvals to control oversupply, support prices, preserve reserves and prioritise domestic demand. The result was a sharp recovery in the country’s core low and medium-CV coal prices, even though mine production did not fall as quickly as sentiment initially implied.
The full H1 picture is therefore more complex than a simple supply-cut story. Indonesia retained abundant mining capacity and large headline production, but policy uncertainty, domestic obligations, coal-quality mismatches and selective marketing reduced the amount of coal immediately available to export buyers. At the same time, LNG disruption in Q2 encouraged greater coal burn in Asia and gave the rally a real demand component.
1. Indonesia’s coal foundation: scale, cost and Asian proximity
Indonesia’s competitive advantage is not simply the size of its coal reserves. It is the combination of large-scale and relatively low-cost mining, short shipping distances to major Asian buyers and the ability to supply a wide range of thermal-coal qualities. This makes Indonesia the dominant volume supplier in seaborne low- and medium-CV coal, particularly to China, India, the Philippines, Malaysia and South Korea.
Indonesia had approximately 97.96 billion tonnes of coal resources at end-2024. The supplied 2025 reserve chart reports 33.25 billion tonnes (33,250 Mt) of proved-plus-probable coal reserves. Kalimantan holds 69.3% and Sumatra 30.7%, with East Kalimantan and South Sumatra the two largest reserve regions. Around 69% of identified resources were low-calorific coal of 4,200 kcal/kg GAR or below.
Indonesia approximately reports national coal reserves at 33.25 billion tonnes. East Kalimantan alone accounts for 47.2%, followed by South Sumatra at 23.5%; other islands collectively contribute only about 0.05%. This structure is visible from Indonesia’s mining-permit distribution. Kalimantan is the core export base, supported by established river, barging and seaborne logistics. Sumatra has greater domestic relevance through PLN supply, mine-mouth power plants and consumption of lower-CV coal. Higher-CV material exists, but it is not the dominant volume base of the Indonesian system.
That quality profile creates both an advantage and a vulnerability. Low-CV coal is inexpensive on a per-tonne basis, but it is not always inexpensive after adjusting for energy content. Export competitiveness can therefore change quickly when freight rates rise or buyers switch toward more energy-dense coal from Australia, South Africa or other origins.
2. Coal-quality classification: where Indonesian supply sits
Indonesian thermal coal is conventionally classified by calorific value on a gross-as-received basis. GAR reflects the energy value of coal including its as-received moisture and is closely linked to the typical moisture, ash, sulphur, combustion behaviour and end-use of each cargo. Indonesia’s commercial identity is concentrated in the low- and medium-CV portion of this spectrum, which are usually in the range of ICI 3 to ICI 5.
The quality labels are broad commercial descriptors. Actual cargo value also depends on moisture, sulphur, ash, mine location and logistics.
Both the ICI commercial assessment system and the HBA administrative system are structured around the qualities Indonesia actually mines and sells, although they use different reference specifications and serve different purposes. ICI has five grades; the current HBA framework has four.
3. Production expanded rapidly before the 2026 policy turn
Indonesia’s coal production illustrates a decade of steady output growth interrupted by a first pullback in 2025. Production rose from 563.7 million tonnes in 2020 to a peak of 836 million tonnes in 2024, a compound annual growth rate of roughly 10.4%, a pace driven largely by expanding export demand from China and India alongside rising domestic industrial consumption. That growth reversed in 2025, with output easing to approximately 817 million tonnes, a decline of about 2.3% year-on-year, marking the first contraction in the series and an early signal of the tighter production discipline that would carry into the 2026 RKAB cycle.
A notable feature of the underlying data is that Indonesia's Domestic Market Obligation has been met, and generally exceeded, in every year shown. Actual domestic allocation has consistently run in the range of roughly 25% to 30% of total production, comfortably above the regulatory minimum requirement, rather than sitting at the statutory floor. This suggests domestic supply commitments have not been a binding constraint on producers during this period; rather, the recent tightening in domestic allocation reflects deliberate policy intent to raise that share further, not a response to prior shortfalls. Exports have remained the larger channel throughout, but their share of total production has gradually narrowed as the domestic allocation has grown, consistent with the broader shift toward prioritising Indonesia's power and smelting demand.
After this high-output period, the government initially sought a much sharper reduction for 2026, with an ambition to move production toward the 600 Mt range. Many companies reportedly received initial RKAB quotas 40–70% below their 2025 levels. The policy objectives were broader than price support: they included controlling oversupply, preserving reserves and ensuring that domestic power and strategic industries received priority.
4. Why Indonesia runs two coal benchmarks
4.1 HBA: the government’s administrative reference
Harga Batubara Acuan is set monthly by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. Its main role is administrative: HBA forms the basis for the Harga Patokan Batubara reference selling price, royalty and PNBP calculations, and DMO-price compliance. Cargo adjustments reflect actual calorific value, moisture, sulphur and ash against four reference specifications: HBA at 6,322 kcal/kg GAR, HBA-I at 5,300, HBA-II at 4,100 and HBA-III at 3,400.
HBA History Timeline
Before 2023, HBA used a weighted basket that included the Indonesian Coal Index, Newcastle Export Index, GlobalCoal Newcastle Index and Platts 5900 alongside Indonesian assessments. Because several components represented premium high-CV coal from outside Indonesia, HBA could detach sharply from the value realised by Indonesian sellers of low-CV cargoes. In October 2022, for example, HBA reached about $330/t while ICI 4, representative of a grade many Indonesian producers were actually shipping, was around $91–95/t. Producers argued that the gap overstated royalty obligations for companies not selling premium coal.
Kepmen ESDM No. 41/2023 replaced the international-index basket with a formula based on actual realised FOB-vessel transaction prices reported through the e-PNBP Minerba system. The calculation assigns 70% weight to the prior month’s average sales price and 30% to the month before that. The supplied material identifies Kepmen ESDM No. 72/2025 as the current governing regulation and says it retains the transaction-based approach and four-tier structure.
4.2 ICI: the commercial market benchmark
The Indonesian Coal Index is a weekly market-assessed price series jointly produced by Argus Media and PT Coalindo Energy. It covers five FOB grades, 6,500, 5,800, 5,000, 4,200 and 3,400 kcal/kg GAR, and draws on input from buyers, sellers and intermediaries active in the physical market. ICI is more commonly used in commercial negotiation because of its frequency, independence, granular mapping to actual cargo qualities and comparability with Newcastle and Richards Bay benchmarks. HBA remains indispensable, but for a narrower fiscal and administrative function. Since HBA is now derived from domestic transactions that themselves reflect market conditions, the two series move more closely than before 2023, although HBA still tends to lag.
That breadth is a large part of why ICI functions as the leading price reference for Indonesian coal more broadly, used for both domestic and international contracts, royalty and tax calculations, corporate finance, and production planning, rather than a narrower, origin-specific price series. Its weekly cadence, relative to HBA's monthly and backward-looking construction, is the other key reason it remains the benchmark commercial parties actually negotiate against: it responds to current market conditions rather than lagging by up to two months, it is derived independently of government administration, and it is quoted alongside Newcastle and Richards Bay for cross-market comparison. HBA continues to serve a narrower but essential function, determining royalty obligations and DMO-price settlement rather than commercial transaction value.
5. Early-2026 production: policy tightened faster than mine output
Indonesia’s coal production did not collapse in early 2026. The market became more constrained because production was increasingly shaped by RKAB policy rather than mining capability. Preliminary figures cited in the supplied analysis put January–May output at 302 Mt, only 6% lower year on year, while coal sales and marketing fell much more sharply to 257.27 Mt, down 17%.
An indicative H1 estimate of about 362.4 Mt would already equal more than 60% of a 600 Mt annual target and imply an annualised pace above 700 Mt. This was the core contradiction of H1: supply policy was bullish for prices, but implementation remained incomplete. Miners were still producing at a relatively high rate while market absorption, exports and domestic allocations became more selective.
6. Exports, Asian demand and Indonesia’s global position
In the 2025 customs mirror-data comparison, Indonesia remained the world’s largest coal exporter by volume at 531.15 Mt, equal to 41.9% of reported export-side declarations. Australia followed at 356.45 Mt. The United States, South Africa, Colombia, Russia and Canada were substantially smaller. Australia competes most directly in high-CV thermal and metallurgical coal; Indonesia leads total export volume through its large low- and medium-CV thermal-coal base.
Top 20 coal-exporting countries in 2025 (million tonnes; customs mirror-data ranking).
On the import side, China was the largest reported buyer in 2025 at 491.09 Mt, or 32.5% of import-side declarations, followed by India at 253.46 Mt, or 16.8%. Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan formed the next group. Global seaborne coal demand is therefore heavily concentrated in Asia. For Indonesia, China and India remain the main external demand centres because of their scale and ability to consume Indonesian low- and medium-CV coal.
Top 20 coal-importing countries in 2025 (million tonnes; customs mirror-data ranking).
6.1 H1 2026 reported shares and June destination mix
According to SMM-processed data and available customs information, January-June 2026 export-side declarations totalled 469.32 Mt. Indonesia accounted for 195.58 Mt, or 41.7% of this reported origin-side total, followed by Australia at 29.8%, the United States at 8.1% and South Africa at 6.9%. On the importer side, combined January-June destination demand was led by China at 182.82 Mt, or 30.4% of the reported total, followed by India at 17.0%, Japan at 11.0% and South Korea at 9.5%.
These proportions describe the January-June global origin structure and importer-side destination demand; they are not an Indonesia-to-China bilateral matrix. Because late-period customs reporting is incomplete, SMM treats them as provisional H1 proportions that may be revised after additional declarations.
7. DMO, "penugasan" and the difference between total and usable supply
Indonesia’s Domestic Market Obligation is a domestic-priority rule. The general benchmark requires coal producers to allocate 25% of approved annual production to domestic users. Compliance is linked to RKAB approvals and annual domestic assignments, with reporting, quality and delivery obligations that protect PLN, coal-fired power plants and strategic industries. The 25% benchmark is therefore a minimum policy reference rather than a uniform realised ratio for every miner. Non-compliance may trigger compensation funds, fines or restrictions on overseas coal sales.
"Penugasan" refers to the practical assignment of domestic supply, identifying which miner supplies which domestic buyer, usually PLN or another strategic user. DMO is the broad quota, while penugasan is the allocation mechanism. This makes the burden uneven: miners with large PLN or state-linked assignments can effectively supply more than the headline percentage.
Indonesia’s domestic coal challenge is less about aggregate national availability than the allocation of suitable coal to specific users. DMO establishes producers’ broad domestic sales obligations, while the government may appoint particular producers or traders to address urgent supply shortages. However, the resulting burden cannot be inferred solely from the share of demand associated with state-linked users; company-level assignments and delivery data are needed to show which suppliers carry the largest obligation.
PLN Group and independent power producers were estimated to require 152.51 Mt in 2026. The reported January–May shortfall of approximately 9.4 Mt comprised 5.67 Mt of medium-rank coal and 3.76 Mt of low-rank coal. However, the stated receipt average of 10.7 Mt per month does not fully reconcile with these figures and should be checked against PLN’s actual monthly delivery schedule. The shortage nevertheless illustrates that sufficient national production does not guarantee the availability of the correct coal grade, location and delivery timing for each power plant.
Price-cap framework: Coal supplied for public electricity generation is capped at US$70/t FOB vessel at the 6,322 kcal/kg GAR reference specification under MEMR Decree 139.K/HK.02/MEM.B/2021. Coal supplied to domestic industrial users, including cement, is capped at US$90/t under Decree 58.K/HK.02/MEM.B/2022. Both marker prices are adjusted for actual calorific value, moisture, sulphur and ash. The US$90/t regime excludes metal-mineral processing and refining, so smelter coal should not automatically be treated as cement-price-capped.
The commercial tension becomes material when export-equivalent netbacks exceed the domestic caps. Take example for the first May 2026 period, the official 6,322 GAR HBA was US$106.57/t, implying a headline benchmark gap of US$36.57/t versus the PLN cap and US$16.57/t versus the industrial cap before quality, freight, contract and royalty effects. A miner carrying a high DMO or penugasan share may therefore earn less revenue and margin than on an export sale of comparable coal, creating an incentive to limit domestic exposure to required or assigned volumes. This is a margin concern, not a legal option to avoid DMO: non-compliance can trigger fines, compensation payments and export restrictions. If export prices fall below the caps, or quality and logistics adjustments absorb the spread, the export premium can narrow or disappear.
8. H1 2026 price trend: policy-led Q1, demand-led Q2
For analysing 2026 prices, ICI 3, ICI 4 and ICI 5 provide the clearest view because they represent Indonesia’s physical medium- and low-CV market. HBA remains relevant for administrative and fiscal purposes, but its monthly look-back means it tends to follow the physical market with a delay.
Q1: RKAB expectations, weather, and tighter spot supply
Q1 was initially driven by expectations that Indonesia would reduce its 2026 coal production target from 790 million tonnes in 2025 to around 600 million tonnes. While company-level RKAB allocations were still being finalised, delayed approvals and uncertainty over individual quotas made some miners cautious about production planning and forward sales. This tightened immediately available spot cargoes, particularly from smaller and medium-sized producers.
Seasonal rainfall reinforced the policy-driven supply concerns by disrupting open-pit mining, haul roads and barging operations in parts of Kalimantan and Sumatra. January exports fell to 39.56 million tonnes, down 22.7% month on month, while BPS subsequently confirmed that national coal production declined during Q1. However, the impact was uneven: some producers front-loaded output and DMO deliveries ahead of potential quota reductions, meaning the market faced constrained marginal supply rather than a uniform nationwide production cut.
From January 2 to March 27, ICI 3 rose 23.0% from $60.91/t to $74.89/t, ICI 4 increased 32.7% from $45.46/t to $60.31/t, and ICI 5 gained 17.6% from $30.97/t to $36.41/t. ICI 4 recorded the strongest percentage increase, consistent with tighter availability and stronger competition for Indonesia’s core 4,200 kcal/kg GAR export grade. Nevertheless, part of its outperformance reflected its lower starting price, while the LNG disruption beginning in early March also contributed to the final stage of the Q1 increase.
Q2: LNG disruption and gas-to-coal demand
During Q2, market support shifted toward regional energy security. Disruption to oil and LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz removed a substantial portion of global energy supply, sharply raising Asian gas and international oil prices. Higher LNG prices encouraged utilities with sufficient fuel flexibility and available coal-fired capacity to reduce spot-gas consumption and increase coal generation.
The disruption also affected coal supply costs. Brent rose from around $71/bbl on February 27 to $104/bbl on March 9 and remained volatile during Q2, while diesel and other refined-product prices increased even more sharply. Because Indonesian open-pit coal production depends heavily on diesel-powered mining equipment, trucks, barges and support vessels, higher fuel prices raised production and logistics costs. The coal rally therefore reflected both stronger gas-to-coal switching demand and a higher cost base across the Indonesian supply chain.
From March 27 to June 26, ICI 3 rose another 13.3% to $84.83/t, ICI 4 gained 9.3% to $65.92/t, and ICI 5 increased 14.1% to $41.54/t. Prices peaked around June 12 before easing modestly into month-end. Across H1, ICI 3 increased 39.3%, ICI 4 gained 45.0% and ICI 5 rose 34.1%. Overall, the rally reflected the combined effects of RKAB-related supply expectations, weather and operating constraints, LNG-driven fuel switching and higher oil-related production and transportation costs.
9. H2 2026 outlook: a pause before a possible Q4 recovery
The H1 rally has stalled. Overseas buyers are pushing back on higher offers, and comfortable inventories have taken the urgency out of restocking. Absent a fresh catalyst, price action into H2 looks more like consolidation than a resumption of the uptrend.
RKAB is the decisive H2 variable. Producers are seeking to maximise economically usable approvals, and SMM’s indicative scenario places total 2026 quota availability at around 730-750 Mt. This is an analytical scenario, not an announced official total, and it is conditional mainly on domestic coal requirements being met. DMO compliance, cargo quality and actual delivery capacity will determine how much approved volume can become exportable supply.
Winter demand offers some support, but seasonality alone won't do much heavy lifting. A real rebound needs more than a calendar effect — tight RKAB discipline, a weather or logistics disruption, or restocking that outpaces the norm. If approvals land near the top of our range and get fully drawn down, the extra tonnage argues for a longer correction, not a shorter one.
SMM believes that RKAB size is the swing factor for Q4 price direction
The size of 2026 RKAB approvals is the single variable that decides which way H2 prices move.
- If approvals land large, quota issued near the top of the range and largely usable, it is expected the correction to continue. More approved tonnage means more coal eligible for export, and that supply overhang caps any price recovery through year-end.
- If approvals stay tight, and DMO enforcement holds firm, the exportable pool shrinks. Combine that with the seasonal demand pickup that typically accompanies Q4 rainy-season disruption to output and logistics, and the setup shifts toward a price recovery into year-end — tight supply meeting a seasonal demand bump, rather than seasonality doing the work on its own.
In short: large RKAB → correction persists. Tight RKAB + strict DMO → year-end price recovery. The quota decision is the fork in the road; everything else (winter demand, rainy-season logistics) just determines how sharp the move is once that fork is decided.
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