Indonesian coal producer Indominco said repairs to its damaged coal loader at the Bontang terminal could take about two weeks, a senior official at its parent company said on Wednesday.

“Based on preliminary assessments, repairs could be finished within two weeks,” Somyot Ruchirawat, head of Indonesian coal operations at Thai Energy firm Banpu , said by telephone.

The company declared force majeure on Monday on coal shipments after the boom of a ship loader fell on a vessel being loaded at the Bontang terminal in East Kalimantan.

Banpu said in a statement to the Thai stock exchange on Tuesday that it might take a number of weeks to resolve the problem.

Ruchirawat said the company had started some repairs.

“We started repairing some facilities which we can repair, but for some other facilities, we will await recommendations from experts,” he said without elaborating.

“They will investigate in detail just to be sure that it will be safe for us to keep operations going,” he added.

Indominco had seven vessels in Bontang port waiting to load before the accident, a senior company official said on Tuesday.

Banpu ships 65 percent of its Indonesian coal output from Bontang coal terminal, which has a capacity of 12.5 million tonnes a year, while the rest is shipped from a public port and an offshore loading facility in East Kalimantan, Ruchirawat said.

“We do not lose 100 percent of the shipment because of the stopping of Bontang port,” Ruchirawat said.

He said the company was still studying the possibility of diverting coal loading and shipments to other ports in East Kalimantan.

Indominco supplies customers across Asia and Europe. Korean, Japanese and Indian customers are expected to be the worst hit by the force majeure because availability of alternative sources in Asia is extremely tight, market sources said.

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