Japan and Indonesia, the world's second-largest coal exporter, may build a floating dock worth as much as ¥100 billion to enable speedier transfer of the fuel from barges to bigger ships.
Construction of the so-called megafloat, to be moored off the coast of East Kalimantan, is likely to start in 2014, said Hidenobu Teramura, a director at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The dock, longer than eight Airbus SAS A380 superjumbos, will be designed to cut the time taken to load a Panamax ship to one day from seven, the transport ministry in Tokyo said.