China Unveils 3-year Campaign to Boost Large Coal Mines

China will continue to retire small-sized and inefficient coal mines to improve mining safety and optimize the industry's structure, according to Li Haowen, deputy director of the Ministry of Emergency Management's General Office.

By 2022, coal mines which the ministry categorizes as 'large-sized' - underground mines whose raw coal capacity is above 1.2 million tonnes/year and open-cut mines above 4 million t/y - will exceed 70% of all mines in operation, Li declared on Tuesday.

Introducing a new three-year central-government campaign focussing on safety operations over 2020-2022, Li noted that rectification work to enhance safety in coal mines nationwide is one of nine key areas the scheme aims to target. The campaign, which officially started this month, will address issues in several other areas including production and use of hazardous chemicals, fire safety and transportation.

"As a high-risk industry, coal mining is relatively special and particularly prone to incidents caused by gas bursts, coal dust, fires, roof collapses and rock bursts", Li told media attending a press conference in Beijing Tuesday.

During the three-year campaign, authorities will reinforce efforts now being undertaken to eliminate small-sized mines below 300,000 t/y of raw coal capacity, he reiterated.

According to the national standard, underground mines above 1.2 million tonnes/year and open-cut mines above 4 million t/y in raw coal capacity are identified as large-sized operations, while small-sized underground and open-cut mines are those whose capacities are below 450,000 t/y and 1 million t/y respectively. Some 90% coal mines in China are underground operations.

Besides stepping up the elimination of small mines, the campaign aims to encourage improved levels of mechanization, automation and intelligent operations at coal mines. For example, the number of mines nationwide widely adopting 'intelligent' or smart mining and extraction technology at their workfaces will increase from the existing 280 to reach 1,000 by 2022, or equivalent to 1-1.5 billion t/y of raw capacity, Li said.

Over the same period, supervision of coal mining activity will be intensified, and remote supervision systems will be installed in all mines under construction or in normal operations during the three years, according to Li.

China has made significant progress in improving mining capacity over the past few years, Li said. For example, the number of domestic coal mines in operation has significantly declined from some 37,000 in the early 2000s to only 5,268 by the end of 2019. Over the same period, fatalities from coal mining accidents fell from around 9,500 per year to reach 316 in 2019, he noted.

Last year, deaths among Chinese coal miners per million tonnes of raw coal produced refreshed its record low at 0.083, according to official data. However, the rate remains higher than those in other major coal-mining countries with rigorously enforced safety standards including Australia.

Note: This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between CoalMint and Mysteel -- a China-centric insight and global metal markets intelligence providing company.