China is working to consolidate its coal industry, improve safety and stabilize supply by establishing large-scale production bases, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a Thursday press release. A general plan for establishment of the 13 bases has already been drafted.

Detailed plans covering coal exploitation and transportation, environmental protection and regional economic development will be worked out before the end of this year or early next year, the NDRC said.

As part of the nation's medium- and long-term plans for energy and coal industry development, the bases will improve utilization of coal resources and alleviate energy shortages, an NDRC official surnamed Wei told China Daily.

The bases are chiefly located in the nation's major coal-producing areas, such as Shanxi, Hebei and Shaanxi provinces and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The central government strengthened its regulation of the coal industry early last year as a result of power shortages that began to appear in June 2002.

Large enterprise groups will be built in the bases through acquisitions, reorganizations and shareholding, the NDRC said.

About 60 percent of the nation's electricity supply depends on coal, a situation not expected to change substantially in the next 20 to 30 years, said Dou Qingfeng, vice director of the China Coal Industry Association (CCIA).

According to the CCIA, the nation has around 24,000 small coal mines, where poor management, inadequate investment and outdated equipment prevent resources from being fully and properly utilized.

According to the country's technical code for coal mining and utilization, at least 75 percent of available coal should be extracted. But one official in Shaanxi Province said recently that none of the mines in his province reaches that level, and that the average extraction rate is just 30 percent.

Small mining operations are also marked by low mechanization and per-employee productivity, and shockingly high accident and fatality rates.

In 2003, the average output per miner in China was 321 tons of coal, only 2.2 percent of the United States figure and 8.1 percent of South Africa's. At the same time, its fatality rate per million tons was nearly four, 100 times that of the United States and 10 times the world average.

(China Daily December 3, 2004)