Engineering and construction company Clough Limited"s Indonesia subsidiary, PT Petrosea Tbk has been awarded a US$145 million long term alliance mining contract for PT Ilthabi Bara Utama.

The contract is for all aspects of the mining operations at the Pakar Coal Mine Project and follows Petrosea's success in being awarded the initial Mine Development contract for Pakar in July last year.

Clough CEO John Smith says: "This contract extension demonstrates our capability and capacity in delivering integrated services to the mining sector in Indonesia and continues the good relationship that has been developed with the client.

"Petrosea will work in an alliance with the client to perform and manage all mining activities at the mine site. The alliance contract approach promotes a transparent fast track approach to the mining operations and includes a "risk/reward" component that encourages continuous improvement leading to "win-win" outcomes through the contract period.

The mine is an open cut coal mine in central East Kalimantan that will produce thermal coal at an initial rate of 5 million tonnes/year for both export and domestic consumption.

Mining is expected to start on site in March. This initial contract is for a five year period.

To cater for this increased workload Petrosea will further expand its mining fleet through the investment of an additional US$23 million in new plant and equipment.

PT Ilthabi Bara Utama is a start up open-cut coal mining company in the Pakar Area of East Kalimantan. The Pakar Coal project has proven and probable coal reserve of 274 million tonnes and an overall coal resource of about 3.3 billion tonnes. www.clough.com.au