Pressurized drop tube furnace (PDTF) tests were performed with an Indonesian sub-bituminous coal while temperature, oxygen/coal ratio, steam/coal ratio and pressure were systematically varied. The tests were designed to investigate the effects of these experimental parameters on the pulverized coal gasification characteristics at elevated pressure. The results showed that the gasification at elevated pressure is more productive than that at atmospheric pressure, considering the carbon conversion and cold gas efficiency. The oxygen/coal ratio at the maximum cold gas efficiency ranged between 0.5 and 0.7 g/g. Only when the temperature was sufficiently high, did the increase of steam/coal ratio result in the improvement of cold gas efficiency. As the pressure increased, the contribution of carbon conversion by heterogeneous reactions increased while the conversion by pyrolysis decreased. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.