Indonesia to Get More Rainfall in First Quarter Than Year Ago

By Naila Firdausi

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia, the world's largest producer of palm oil and exporter of thermal coal, will probably get more rain in the first quarter than last year, signaling that commodity production and shipments may be disrupted.

Areas in Papua, where Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. has a mine, and parts of Kalimantan and Sulawesi and the northern part of Sumatra will receive more rain in the first two months than the 30-year average, said Soetamto, head of climatology and air quality analysis at Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.

``We are observing weak La Nina conditions this quarter with colder temperatures on the equator, while last year we had normal patterns,'' Soetamto said by phone yesterday. ``The impact will be mostly felt in the eastern part of Indonesia.''

Palm oil is grown mostly in Sumatra and Kalimantan, coffee in Sumatra, cocoa in Sulawesi and coal is mined in Kalimantan. The Southeast Asian country is the world's second-largest producer of rubber, third for cocoa and fourth for coffee.

La Nina is characterized by lower ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, which leads to unusual rains in Indonesia.

``We are taking a more conservative outlook on production'' because of the weather, Dileep Srivastava, a director at PT Bumi Resources, Indonesia's largest coal exporter, said Jan. 14. ``We are targeting an output increase of 10 percent from last year even as our capacity is higher.''

Floods in Capital

Jakarta, which this week received heavy rains that led to parts of the nation's capital being inundated, may have heavier rains this month, raising the possibility of wider floods in the city and surrounding towns.

``Rains will peak in the last week of January through to the first week of February,'' Soetamto said. ``It's still in a rising trend.''

Flooding in Jakarta in January last year left more than 80 people dead and forced the closure of the city's Soekarno-Hatta international airport for almost five hours on Feb. 1. In February 2007, the capital had week-long floods, its worst since 2002, forcing about 600,000 people to flee their homes.

To contact the reporters on this story: Naila Firdausi in Jakarta at nfirdausi@bloomberg.net