In the first ten months, profit of China's coal enterprises above designated size declined 62 percent on year, and state-owned coal enterprises incurred losses of 22.3 billion yuan compared to the 30 billion profit in the same period last year, said Lian Weiliang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) at the Annual Coal Trading Fair for 2016.
To bail out coal industry, China is working on more measures in terms of resolving excessive capacity, improving supply and demand relation, promoting coal companies restructuring and providing financial supports, noted Lian.
China has made progress in boosting the coal industry. In the first ten months of 2015, coal output of the country decreased 3.6 percent on year to 3.05 billion tonnes, and coal imports plunged 30 percent on year to 170 million tonnes, which alleviated the market pressure in excessive supply.
However, coal industry still faces great downward pressure. Domestic coal demand kept declining and social coal stocks remained above 300 million tonnes for 45 months in a row, presenting acute problem in excessive supply.
The price for 5,500-kilocalorie power coal at Qinhuangdao port has dropped 155 yuan/tonne from the year beginning to 370 yuan/tonne. Besides more than 4 billion tonnes of operational coal production in China, there are about 1 billion tonnes of coal production capacity under construction or suspending construction, which would add more pressure to coal supply, said Wang Xiaolin, deputy head of the National Energy Administration at the Trading Fair.
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