China will release more than 200 million tons of advanced coal production capacity to cope with the current energy shortage situation. The National Mine Safety Supervision Bureau recently stated that the current 153 coal mines that meet the requirements for supply guarantee can increase production capacity by about 220 million tons per year.
In the Tashan Coal Mine of Shanxi Jinneng Holding Group, an important thermal coal production base in China, busy underground mining and transportation images are displayed on the large screen of the ground dispatching command center through 5G signals in real time.
At the loading point one kilometer away, 10,000-ton trains are fully loaded with washed clean coal and head to the port one by one. After undertaking the task of guaranteeing the supply of 20.3 million tons, Jinneng Holding Group accelerated coal production and dispatch. In the first eight days of October, it had completed outbound transportation of 4.4 million tons, an increase of 8.1% year-on-year.
Since the beginning of this year, energy prices in the international market have risen sharply, and domestic power and coal supply and demand have continued to be tight. According to data from the National Energy Administration, from January to August, the country’s electricity consumption increased by 13.8% year-on-year.
In late September, power rationing, shutdowns and production shutdowns occurred in many parts of China, and many major energy provinces successively issued notices to promote coal supply and increase production.
Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Shaanxi have signed contracts with more than ten provinces to secure medium and long-term coal supply for the fourth quarter, with a cumulative total of approximately 145 million tons. As the top three provinces in China’s raw coal production in 2020, the total raw coal production in the three places exceeds 2.7 billion tons, accounting for 71% of the country’s total production.
The advancement of the supply guarantee action directly drives the increase in coal production. On October 6, Shanxi issued a notice that coal mines that intend to increase production capacity will start production, with a net increase of 55.3 million tons/year.
One day later, the Energy Bureau of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region notified that 72 coal mines included in the country’s list of potential nuclear increase potentials will add about 98 million tons of new production capacity per year. The latest data shows that Inner Mongolia has successively approved three batches of increased coal mine production capacity by 138 million tons per year.
Yu Bing, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, said that the current daily output of coal has stabilized at more than 11.2 million tons, an increase of 800,000 tons from before the National Day, creating a new high since February this year.
Jia Kang, Dean of China New Supply Economics Research Institute, said that the current increase in energy production and supply will help accelerate the release of high-quality coal production capacity. It is not a short-term action to restore outdated production capacity, nor will it curb China’s long-term plan for energy conservation and emission reduction.
“This is also an important measure to ensure the safe and stable operation of energy and power and maintain the bottom line of people’s livelihood energy use.” Jia Kang said.
In fact, China has achieved remarkable results in energy conservation and emission reduction in the past ten years. According to data from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, in 2018, China completed ahead of schedule its commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 40%-45% in 2020 compared to 2005.
In the “14th Five-Year Plan”, China pointed out that it is necessary to vigorously increase the scale of wind power and photovoltaic power generation, develop offshore wind power in an orderly manner, build a number of complementary clean energy bases, and increase the proportion of non-fossil energy to about 20%.