Asia’s Coal Mavericks Chase Riches While Giant Miners Scale Back

The coal mine at PT Triaryani mine site in Musi Rawas, South Sumatra, Indonesia, on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. Photographer: Muhammad Fadli/Bloomberg Photo by Muhammad Fadli /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — Deep in the rainforests of Indonesia, a group of miners is betting there’s still billions to be made from the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel.

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Global mining giants have largely retreated from coal under pressure from Western investors and governments, but consumption is climbing to new highs. Roza Permana Putra, who oversees the PT Triaryani mine in remote South Sumatra, is among those hoping to capitalize on this gap between green promises and real-world progress. 

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“Coal is a black sheep,” said Putra, the mine’s local director, taking a drag of his cigarette while motioning towards excavators lifting smoldering piles of coal onto trucks. “This is my baby.”

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The 59-year-old first arrived a decade ago when the site was pristine jungle. Since then, rows of trees have been felled and the earth split open for excavation. Singapore-listed Geo Energy Resources Ltd., which bought the mine in 2023, is cranking up coal production. Including its initial purchase and ongoing infrastructure investments, the company is spending a total of around $500 million on Triaryani. The wager is simple: that demand will linger far longer than experts predict.

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So far, the bet looks solid. Although much of the developed world is reducing coal mining and shifting to renewables, global demand hasn’t yet peaked as expected by researchers including the International Energy Agency — a reality reflected in the shifting rhetoric of political leaders.

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In the US, once a global climate leader, President Donald Trump has axed clean energy incentives and extolled the virtues of “beautiful, clean coal.”  In Indonesia, recent governments have tacitly allowed industries to burn more coal to power a growing population. Nations aren’t on track to cut emissions as pledged under the Paris Agreement — an inconvenient truth that negotiators will confront at the upcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil.

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Geo Energy isn’t a wildcatter in the traditional sense, since it’s developing sites already proven to have coal deposits. However, it’s one of dozens of opportunistic players in Asia acquiring underdeveloped or mothballed mines from retreating majors. They are the new face of the coal industry — nimble and less constrained by ESG pressures. Many of these mavericks are looking to mimic the success of PT Bayan Resources’ founder, Low Tuck Kwong, who became one of Indonesia’s richest men by investing in coal mining in the 1990s. 

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Charles Antonny Melati, Putra’s boss and Geo Energy’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said his company was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the untapped deposits left to niche players speculating on coal’s long goodbye.

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“Big players want to exit. But small ones cannot enter, because the mines involved are very big and capital intensive,” said Melati, who co-founded Geo Energy in 2008. “For us in the middle, it’s an opportunity.”

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Originally a mining service supplying trucks and heavy equipment, Geo Energy acquired an East Kalimantan coal mine in 2011. That and several more deals transformed the company into a mine owner and operator. Triaryani, though, is by far its biggest venture yet.