During the 14th Five Year Plan period over 2021-2025, China’s coal industry should go through further optimization by capping the number of the operative coal mines within 4,000 and raising the contribution to the country’s annual coal production by the larger-sized mines each with 1.2 million tonnes/year and above to over 85% by the end of the period, the China National Coal Association (CNCA) proposed.
The two targets are among the series of guidelines shared by CNCA on June 3, and these will suggest serious upgrading in the country’s coal industry in five years, as by the end of 2020, China were having around 4,700 coal mines, and those with the annual capacity at 1.2 million t/y and above accounted for 1,200, or contributing to 80% of the country’s total coal production, according to CNCA data.
The targets for the coal industry are part of the efforts for China to peak carbon emission by 2030 and to be carbon neutral by 2060, as energy industry has been the country’s top carbon emitter, and serious structural optimization in the energy industry and reducing national energy consumption as well as energy intensity are all crucial, the association pointed out.
By 2020, China’s carbon emission in energy consumption was estimated at about 10 billion tonnes, among which 75% was from coal consumption, Liu Feng, vice president of CNCA, shared at a conference in Beijing on June 4.
As the percentage of coal in China’s primary energy consumption will continue to decline and thus a limited room for coal consumption growth nationwide in the coming years, the country’s coal industry will probably need to reevaluate their original development strategy that had heavily focused on higher capacity, higher output and higher prices, the association reminded.
By 2025, China’s coal production will be limited within 4.1 billion tonnes, and consumption curtailed under 4.2 billion tonnes, while the country’s mega-sized coal mines with the individual capacity at over 10 million t/y may reach 65 or hosting an over 1 billion t/y raw coal capacity in total, the document states.
By 2020, China had 52 coal mines with the individual capacity at over 10 million t/y or a total capacity at 820 million t/y, according to the CNCA data.
China has been progressing with its coal industry optimization in the past few years, and over 2016-2020, China eliminated 1 billion t/y of outdated coal capacity, closing 5,500 coal mines, and the country’s total raw coal production reached 3.9 billion tonnes, or up 4% from 2015, according to the official data.
Written by Sean Xie & Hongmei Li, MySteel.com
