Coal Mine Mogul Low Debuts High on Globe Rich List | The Jakarta Globe

Dato Low Tuck Kwong, 61, the owner of coal group PT Bayan Resources, is a newcomer to Globe Asia’s list of the 150 Wealthiest Indonesians, coming in at No. 8 with an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion. 

Born in Singapore, Low first came to Indonesia in 1971 with his father, Low Sum, who owned a construction company based in the city-state. They arrived in Jakarta to do due diligence on a cold-storage operation, but the younger Low got involved in many other projects in Indonesia, including refineries, fertilizer plants and airport construction, and became an Indonesian citizen in 1992. 

In 1985, Low entered the coal mining business as a contractor. The projects lasted for several years with clients such as PT Multi Harapan Utama and PT Bukit Baiduri and gave him the idea to acquire his own concession. 

“I thought as long as we had a contract with coal buyers, we could always work. No more chasing projects, laying off employees and headaches for me,” Low said. In 1995, he eventually found his first concession, Gunung Bayan, about 200 kilometers northwest of Balikpapan, acquiring 65 percent of the concession from the landowner. 

In 1997, after some tough negotiations, he acquired the rest of the concession at a total cost of $2 million.

“At that time, coal concessions were relatively cheap, but Gunung Bayan was quite expensive, yielding coal with high caloric value,” Low said. “At the start there was nothing in Gunung Bayan but forest.” 

Low now has eight coal concessions in Kalimantan, containing proven and probable reserves of about 472 million tons, as well as a coal terminal and a floating transfer station to serve his operations. All of the assets are grouped under Bayan Resources, which went public in 2008. Low controls 59.17 percent of the shares. 

Asked whether he foresaw a boom in the coal business when he acquired Gunung Bayan, the soft-spoken Low replied: “If I knew coal prices would boom, I would have bought hundreds of concessions at the time. No, I didn’t foresee it turning out this way. My sole intention was to keep my employees working.” 

Lim Chai Hock, Bayan Resources’ chief operating officer who has worked with Low since the 1980s, said the lack of infrastructure was an early challenge. 

“When we started the Gunung Bayan project, no one ever thought about using 3,000-ton barges to transport coal,” he said. 

“We called two consultants to study the river and found out that the Kedang Pahu River could accommodate these barges.” 

Bayan Resources is one of the fastest-growing coal companies in the country. Over the last three years, its output has increased by an average of 42 percent a year. In 2009, it produced 11.4 million tons of coal and it was the only publicly traded domestic coal company that managed to lift its earnings in the first quarter of 2010. 



Globe Asia