News last week that a consortium of local and international investors was paying US$3.2bn to buy the Borneo coal assets of Bumi Resources, has highlighted the growing appetite for Indonesia's thermal coal assets.

Indonesia last year exported 124m tonnes of coal and overtook Australia as the world's largest exporter of thermal coal. Moreover, in places such as central Kalimantan - Indonesia's portion of Borneo - the country still has large unexploited reserves that companies such as BHP-Billiton are looking at.