Indonesia signed its first coal-bed methane (CBM) production-sharing contract on Tuesday and said it intended to sign several more this year to reduce its dependence on oil and allow it to sell more of its huge deposits of liquefied natural gas on global markets.

Indonesia’s estimated CBM resources of 453 trillion cubic feet (tcf) are among the largest in the world after the US and China, thanks to its 90.5bn tonnes of coal deposits.