Adaro’s history begins with the global oil shocks of the 1970s. They caused the Indonesian Government to revise its energy policy, until then focused on oil and gas, to include coal as a fuel for domestic use.With this increased focus on coal, in 1976 the Mines Department divided East and South Kalimantan into eight coal blocks and invited tenders for these blocks.Spanish Government company Enadimsa bid for Block 8 in the Tanjung district of South Kalimantan, as coal was known to be present in the district from outcrops mapped by Dutch geologists in the 1930s and from intersections at depth in oil wells drilled by Pertamina in the 1960s.No other company bid for this block; at that time it was regarded as being too far inland and the coal of low quality.