The Company has established business plan and investment strategy by following diversification strategy guidelines; nonetheless such development or investment shall be under prudent and careful consideration with appropriate diversification of risks, in order for the Company to develop with quality, stability and sustainability in long term. In addition, the Company places importance on business operations with good corporate governance with social and environment responsibility. Currently, the Company’s core business is in the coal business, having two existing coal mining concessions in Indonesia and has recently invested in the third coal mining concession in 2021, in which the concession period of these three coal mines shall last for than 10 years with large amount of good quality coal reserves that can earn revenues and income continuously for a long time into the future. Nonetheless, current global trend has negative view on fossil fuels, namely oil, natural gas and coal, which are regarded as important factor for creating greenhouse gases, which cause global warming condition, seriously impacting climate conditions, by which there have been attempts to reduce and replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. However, in reality, fossil fuels are currently still the main energy sources and there are still a lot of limitations for switching to alternative energy or renewable energy for the main energy sources. Thus, fossil fuels remain necessary during this transitional period, including coal, which is still required for electricity generation and industrial process, especially with higher demand from countries in the Asia Region, albeit with declining rate of demand in the future. In any case, the Company, with knowledge and expertise in the coal business, is still looking for more investment opportunities in coal concessions in Indonesia in order to compensate for the reduction in coal reserves resulted from continuous production and distribution of coal every year.
The Company realizes about the climate change issues and places importance on the effective utilization of resources by giving priority to environmental care and endeavor, to develop and achieve Company’s goal toward carbon neutrality in the near future. The Company has established plan to create balances in its investments by focusing on future investments in the clean or renewable energy businesses, which are environmental friendly and have continued to expand; for instance, projects involving solar energy, wind energy, hydro energy and biomass energy, etc. Especially at present, the government sector has encouraged and increased its support for renewable and clean energy projects. Accordingly, the Company is looking for business opportunities or investment channels in order to achieve another round of business growth or a new s-curve by trying to think outside the box from previous energy business development concept, being more creative in order to develop a new business, which is non-coal, albeit without knowledge or expertise in such business. Such investment can be undertaken through business takeover, merger and acquisition or joint venture partnership deal, etc. The objective is to find opportunity or channel for investment in the other business to supplement revenues and income from the Company’s existing coal business and ethanol business, which should contribute to Company’s growth with stability, quality and sustainability in long term according to established guidelines and objectives.
RENEWABLE ENERGY BUSINESS ACTIVITIES
Lanna Power Generation Co., Ltd. (“LPG”), a subsidiary company registered in Thailand in year 2016, with Lanna Resources Public Co., Ltd. directly holds shares at 99.99985 percent of the paid-up capital, having objectives to study and prepare for an investment in renewable energy business both domestically and overseas. In 2020, LPG invested in the acquisition of ordinary shares and preferred shares of SRT Power Pellet Co., Ltd. (“SRT”) with shareholding of 99.9998 percent of the paid-up capital, conducting commercial business of production and distribution of wood pellet with manufacturing plant in Khian Sa District, Surat Thani Province, with production capacity of 60,000 metric tons per year. In addition, the Company and LPG are still looking for investment opportunities and conduct feasibility studies for additional investments in renewable energy projects both domestically and overseas such as biomass energy business, electricity generation from biomass fuels, etc., including investment and development of other energy businesses such as solar energy, wind energy, electric charging station (EV Charging) or related projects, etc., which should bring in more revenues and profit in the future.
SRT Power Pellet Co., Ltd. (“SRT”), a subsidiary company registered in Thailand, with Lanna Power Generation Co., Ltd. (“LPG”), a Company’s subsidiary, having invested in the acquisition of ordinary shares and preferred shares of SRT at 99.9998 percent of the paid-up capital, conducting commercial business in the production and distribution of wood pellet, having manufacturing plant in Khian Sa subdistrict, Surat Thani Province, with production capacity of 60,000 metric tons per year. The raw material is mainly from agricultural product wastes such as wood chips, wood slabs from furniture industry, and rubber wood roots, being fed through production process and compressed into wood pellets, which are suitable as biomass fuel for the boilers and furnaces in the electricity power and steam generation and several industries. Currently, SRT has been affected by the pandemic situation of COVID-19, with a decline in furniture exports causing shortages of wood raw materials, which is the main raw material for wood pellet production, and thus the prices are increased considerably, thereby affecting SRT’s operations and resulting in a net loss. Therefore, the Company has decided to restructure the investment in SRT to enhance flexibility and efficiency. This will involve discontinuing SRT’s operations and transferring its business to LPG to allow for the installation of machines in suitable locations and to conduct feasibility studies on the production of fuel from alternative raw materials, such as cassava, and further distributing to customers. It is expected that wood pellet business trend will continue to improve in the future.
PT Lanna Power Indonesia (“LPI”), a subsidiary company registered in Indonesia, with Lanna Resources Public Co., Ltd. directly holds shares at 99.975 percent of the paid-up capital, which had conducted coal trading business by importing coal for further selling to customers, as well as to seek additional investment opportunities in power plants and renewable energy projects in Indonesia. Nonetheless, the Company has decided to dissolve and liquidate LPI due to current business situation in
Indonesia, whereby laws and regulations recently issued by the Government of Indonesia have become more stringent, making coal trading business of LPI more difficult to operate and LPI had no longer conducted coal trading business. In addition, for the development of power generation and renewable projects in Indonesia, a new or separate single-purpose company must be established to conduct such business, by which the Company may establish a new company in Indonesia when interesting investment projects have come up in the future. It is expected that the dissolution and liquidation of LPI will be completed within the 1st quarter 2023.
