China's top coal province to trim coal output

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

31 Mar 2009

China's top coal-producing province, Shanxi, plans to produce 650 million tonnes of raw coal in 2009, down 2 percent from the previous year, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Shanxi produced 660 million tonnes of coal in 2008, the Shanxi Province Coal Industry Administration said on its website (www.sxcoal.gov.cn). Shanxi's coal output has maintained double-digit rates of annual growth over the past few years, as China's appetite for electricity surged with the booming economy.
The Shanxi Province Coal Industry Administration has decided to control overheated investment in coal mining, according to the Xinhua report.
The province also plans to cut the number of coal mines to 1,000 from 2,500 over the next two years. Thousands of small mines in China, most of them dangerous and inefficient, are blamed for China's poor mine safety record.

Source: Reuters