Fakhrol Azmi Bin Harun, President Director Fakhrol Azmi holds a BA (Hons) in Accountancy from Northern University Malaysia and prior to joining the Adaro Energy Group he held a number of senior management positions with Tenaga Nasional Berhad, Malaysia's state power company, both in Malaysia and Indonesia and with Insurance companies in Malaysia. His last position with TNB before joining Adaro was as President Director of TNB's coal operations in Indonesia. He is currently President Director of PT Sarana Daya Mandiri which is managing the operations of the Barito River sea channel.
PT Sarana Daya Mandiri is a South Kalimantan based company that undertook the dredging project that created the new 15 kilometers Barito River channel in 2008. This effectively tripled the capacity of the Barito river transport system to an estimated 200 million tonnes of cargo per year as it allowed 24 hour per day transit of coal barges and vessels than had previously not been possible through the old tidal restricted channel. In addition to the increase in coal capacity, the new channel has had other major benefits to the economy of the Province with the Banjarmasin Port Authority building two new terminals to handle the increase in cargo and passenger throughput made possible by larger vessels now being able to enter the port.
SDM undertook this dredging as a contractor to PT Ambang Barito Nusapersada, a South Kalimantan Government owned company appointed to dredge the new channel and manage traffic operations. SDM retains the right to jointly operate the channel and collect channel usage fees in conjunction with Ambang Barito Nusapersada. This allows SDM to recoup the cost of the initial capital dredging and fund ongoing expenditures including annual maintenance dredging in the channel to ensure guaranteed depth is maintained year round, upkeep of navigational aids in the channel and ongoing improvements to traffic management systems to ensure safe navigation in the channel.
Since the new channel became operational, two maintenance dredging programs have been undertaken with the latest, which commenced in August 2010, being carried out by international Dutch dredging contractor Van Oord and their local affiliate PT Penkonindo using a trailer suction hopper dredger. During 2010, SDM dredged 3.76 million cubic meters of channel sediments.
As part of its continuous efforts to improve navigational safety in the channel, the Company successfully installed a radar system during 2010 to monitor the channel traffic. Radar operators in control of the system are undergoing training with two already being fully certified.
While coal barges are the greatest percentage of the channel traffic other significant users include small tankers and tank barges servicing the fuel requirements of the province, feeder container ships and passenger ferries which have regular schedules from Banjarmasin to main ports on Java and other inter-island ports together with other smaller cargo ships.
The tonnage of cargo transiting the channel on which channel fees were paid totalled 68.35 million tonnes in 2010 which compares to 58.29 million tonnes in 2009 an increase of 17% which was due to an increase in coal barge traffic over 2009, particularly from the Central Kalimantan province.
