China’s coal production can meet domestic demands: Official

BEIJING—China’s overall capacity of coal production meets domestic demand, an official with the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) said here on Friday.
“Recently, some areas of China suffered inadequate electricity and coal supply, but the phenomenon was caused by a variety of reasons, such as transportation strain,” said Jia Qihai, director of mineral resources development and management department under the MLR on the sidelines of the First Session of the 11th National People’s Congress. The number of China’s coal mines reached 87,000, the historic peak, in 1995. In 2005, the number of coalmines dropped to more than 26,000.
Over the past two years, another 11,200 coal mines which were small, heavily-polluted and with “hidden dangers for work safety” were closed. At the same time some coal mines were integrated via economic and legal means, so as to reasonably utilize resources and guarantee work safety. After rectification, coal production output exceeded 2.5 billion tons last year and the phenomenon that China’s coalmines were “too many, small and scattered” has been changed, said Jia.
“Through intensive management, there will be no problem in guaranteeing long-term and adequate coal supplies for the domestic market,” he said. Earlier this year, during the snowstorm disaster, Chinese President Hu Jintao inspected coal fields in Datong, Shanxi Province and Qinhuangdao Port, through which much of Shanxi’s coalis shipped, and called for the production and transport of coal for power generation.
At the end of January and early February, power grids in central Hubei and Hunan provinces, and southwestern Guizhou and southern Guangdong provinces had been seriously damaged by severe snowstorms and sub-zero temperatures. China has announced a creation of a high-level body to integrate its energy management supervision and policies, functions that are currently dispersed among many government agencies.
The following are basic information about one of its major energy resources — coal, which accounts for about 70 percent of China’s energy use. Coal reserves stood at 1.03 trillion tons as of 2006, which was the world’s third-largest amount, and the country’s coal deposits are concentrated in the northern and northwestern parts of the country. Shanxi, the largest producing province, contributes a quarter of the nation’s total output.
China, the world’s leading coal producer and consumer, saw its raw coal output reach 2.52 billion tons in 2007 and consumption that year stood at 2.58 billion tons, according to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics. Coal is largely used to generate electricity, produce building materials like cement and glass and produce steel. This latter demand is met by coking coal, which constitutes 27 percent of China’s total coal reserves.
China mainly imports coal from southeast Asian nations such as Vietnam and Indonesia, which supplied 76 percent of its total imports in 2007. It also exports coal, mostly to Asian countries: the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan took up about 65 percent of its total exports. But exports have been falling as China takes steps to keep coal home to fuel its fast-growing economy. The government introduced a series of tax changes starting in 2004 to curb coal exports.
Net exports slid to 25 million tons in 2006 from 45.6 million tons in 2005. The figure plunged to 2.15 million tons in 2007, a mere fraction of the 82.9 million tons exported as recently as 2003. China reported a 20.2 percent decrease in the number of fatalities caused by coal mine accidents in 2007. The country’s safety watchdog said that 3,786 people were killed in coal mine accidents last year.

—Xinhua