Report: China Facing Coal Shortage
Report: China facing coal shortage
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MAY. 25 1:28 A.M. ET China is expected to consume 2.2 billion tons of coal a year by 2010, resulting in a shortage of 330 million tons a year, a state-run newspaper reported Wednesday.
China now produces about 1.67 billion tons of coal a year, the state-run newspaper China Daily quoted Wang Xianzheng, a vice director of the State Administration of Work Safety, as saying.
By 2010, output is expected to rise to 1.87 billion tons a year, far below the projected level of consumption, he said.
"The present size and scale of China's coal industry are far from being able to meet the country's future market demand. Insufficient supply will continue to be a major problem," Wang was quoted as telling an energy conference in Beijing.
Wang said China was seeking to diversify its energy supplies to rely more on other resources. Coal presently accounts for more than two-thirds of energy consumption.
Meanwhile, an energy expert forecast that China will depend heavily on foreign oil and gas in the future, as domestic production increasingly lags behind soaring demand.
By 2020, China will consume 450 million tons (3.1 billion barrels) of crude oil and 200 billion cubic meters (7 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas a year, and about half of its oil will come from imports, the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Wang Gongli, president of the China Oil and Natural Gas Designing Institute, as saying.
China produced 175 million metric tons (1.2 billion barrels) of crude oil in 2004. Its maximum annual output will not exceed 200 million tons (1.4 billion barrels) in the future, Wang said.
China now produces 40.8 billion cubic meters (1.4 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas a year. The gap between domestic demand and supply would reach 8 billion cubic meters (283 billion cubic feet) by 2020, he said.
Massive demand for coal is driving managers to ignore safety, making China's mines the world's deadliest with more than 5,000 fatalities each year.
Only about 1.2 billion tons of coal produced last year was done so under acceptable safety standards, Wang said.
The report is in line with a recent projection by the U.S.-based Rand Corp. that China will depend on imports for 60 percent of its oil supply and 30 percent of its natural gas by 2020.
China is the world's second largest importer of crude oil after the United States. In 2004, Chinese imports soared 35 percent on-year to 122 million metric tons (854 million barrels).
Total demand for petroleum is forecast to rise about 10 percent in 2005 to 354 million metric tons (2.5 billion barrels), according to state media reports.
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