Banpu Pcl, Thailand's biggest coal miner, confirmed today it declared force majeure on July 23 shipments from its Jorong mine in Indonesia's Kalimantan because of heavy rainfall.

The Jorong mine, with an annual capacity of 3.5 million metric tons a year and contracts with customers in Asia and Europe, resumed limited production on July 29, the company said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg News.

``The impact of such a declaration is relatively minor,'' the statement said. It is ``assessing the lifting of the force majeure condition depending on weather over the next few days.''

The heavy rain also forced Straits Asia Resources Ltd., a Singapore-listed company with coal mines in Indonesia, to announce July 31 it will miss contracted shipments. Force majeure is a legal clause allowing companies to default on deliveries because of circumstances beyond their control.

Banpu reported first-quarter profit rose 60 percent to 1.19 billion baht ($40 million) because of increased contributions from a power producing unit. Shares of Banpu, which has coal mines in China, Indonesia and Thailand, have risen 47 percent this year, outperforming the 22 percent gain in the Bangkok SET Index. Kalimantan is the Indonesian part of Borneo island.