Mining Reclamation and Post-Mining Technical Guidelines: KEPMEN 344.K/MB.01/MEM.B/2025
The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources has issued a technical decree governing how reclamation and post-mining work must be carried out across mineral and coal mining operations in Indonesia. The decree, officially titled Pedoman Teknis Pelaksanaan Reklamasi dan Pascatambang Pada Kegiatan Usaha Pertambangan Mineral dan Batubara (KEPMEN 344.K/MB.01/MEM.B/2025, dated 23 October 2025), consolidates the procedures, cost standards, and assessment mechanisms that mining license holders must follow when rehabilitating disturbed land and closing out mine sites. It covers operations on land and, for the first time in a single consolidated reference, mining areas located in marine waters.
Reclamation and post-mining obligations are a long-standing feature of Indonesian mining governance. Article 99 of Law No. 4 of 2009 on Mineral and Coal Mining, as amended by Law No. 3 of 2020, requires every mining business license holder to prepare reclamation and post-mining plans and to set aside guarantee funds before production begins. The decree translates that statutory mandate into operational technical standards, replacing dispersed guidance with one reference document. Its purpose is to give both license holders and supervisory officials a common procedural baseline for planning, funding, executing, and verifying site rehabilitation.
The decree's first operative provision establishes four technical annexes that together form an inseparable part of the instrument. The first annex sets out the management of reclamation and post-mining, including for areas in marine waters. The second covers reclamation cost standards. The third governs the reopening of areas that have already been reclaimed. The fourth addresses the appointment of third parties as executors of reclamation or post-mining work, and as assessors of reclamation success. This four-part structure separates the planning and funding rules from the newer mechanisms for restarting reclaimed land and for outsourcing both execution and verification.
The second operative provision delegates a broad set of approval powers to the Director General of Mineral and Coal. These include evaluating and granting or refusing approval of reclamation plans at both the exploration and production-operation stages, approving post-mining plans, approving plans to reopen reclaimed areas, receiving and evaluating implementation reports, approving the disbursement of reclamation and post-mining guarantees, designating the third-party executors and assessors described in the fourth annex, and imposing administrative sanctions. The third provision requires the Director General to report to the Minister every six months, or sooner when needed. The fourth provision extends the rules, applied with necessary adjustments, to holders of People's Mining Permits, Rock Mining Permits, special continuation-of-operation licenses, Contracts of Work, and Coal Mining Concession Work Agreements.
Transitional arrangements occupy the fifth and sixth operative provisions. Applications for reclamation or post-mining success assessment already submitted when the decree took effect may still receive field inspection by Mining Inspectors, but only until the ministry publishes the list of mining-services licenses authorized to act as third-party field reviewers. This signals a shift from inspector-led verification toward licensed external assessors. Production-stage reclamation guarantees placed in instruments other than time deposits before the decree remain valid until their term expires, after which they must be re-placed as time deposits at the value fixed in the original determination letter. Previously approved reclamation and post-mining plan documents stay valid as long as they are not changed, with success measured against the criteria already approved. The sixth provision directs that pending applications to reopen reclaimed areas be processed under the third annex.
For operators, the decree clarifies several points that previously varied in practice. The move to standardized reclamation cost figures in the second annex affects how guarantee values are calculated and how regulators test the adequacy of set-aside funds. The requirement to convert non-deposit guarantees into time deposits tightens the form in which financial assurance must be held. The framework for third-party executors and assessors opens reclamation execution and verification to licensed external providers, while keeping final approval and sanctioning authority with the Director General. The explicit inclusion of marine mining areas brings offshore operations within the same reclamation and post-mining discipline applied on land.
The decree draws its authority from the mining licensing framework under Presidential Regulation No. 55 of 2022 and the ministry's organizational rules, and it operates within the good-mining-practice supervision regime established by Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Regulation No. 26 of 2018. By bringing cost standards, guarantee mechanisms, reopening procedures, and third-party assessment into one technical reference, it provides a single procedural standard for mine closure across the sector. The guidelines took effect on the date of enactment, 23 October 2025.
Methodology: This memo summarises the official regulation text and is not legal advice; report corrections to contact@crpg.info.
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