COAL CONCESSION
 

It was with mixed feelings i involved myself in this project. On the one hand I respect the rights of the Dayak people to utilize their natural resources to enhance their living conditions, on the other hand there's strong concerns in relation to nature preservation.

It all started on a visit to my Singapore office, one late afternoon, just as I was about to leave after a hard days work, my partner and friend Marcus got a call from Indonesia. He waved me back, and asked if we would be interested in helping his friend in Jacarta to find investors for a coal concession. At first, it sounded to craze and I was not really interested. But when he told that the concession was situated in the Central part of Kalimantan (Borneo) I had to consider. We decided to take on the challenge.

14 days later we took the plain to Jakarta in Indonesia for a meeting with the concession holders. We formed a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) and was ready to go, lots of work to do. We had to ensure that the concession was a reality, that the claimed concession holders was in due diligende and that they in fact hold the rights. We had to find out  about all the technicalities, how much could be mined and how much money would be needed to establish and run the mine, and just as important, we had to find out how to get the coal transported out of the aera and finally we had to compile all the information into a good and understandable presentation for the potential investors. Lots of work.