The Benefit of China’s Coal Industry Continuously Improves

China Coal Industry Association released a report on March 1 that in 2018, China’s coal market has basically balanced supply and demand, coal prices fluctuate in a reasonable range, and industry benefits continue to improve.

According to the Annual Report on the Development of the Coal Industry in 2018, the main objective of the “13th Five-Year Plan” to remove coal production capacity was basically completed in 2018, with the coal industry turning from total production capacity to systematic production capacity and structural high production capacity.

According to reports, in 2018, the main business income of Coal Enterprises above the national scale was 2.27 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.5% over the same period of last year, and their profits were 288.82 billion yuan, an increase of 5.2% over the same period of last year. According to the statistics of the association, the total profit of 90 large enterprises (including non-coal) is 156.3 billion yuan, an increase of 26.7% over the same period last year. The ratio of assets and liabilities of Coal Enterprises above scale is 65.7%, which is 2 percentage points lower than that of the previous year.

According to the report, in 2018, the output of raw coal of Enterprises above the scale of 8 billion-ton coal-producing provinces, such as Inner Mongolia and Shanxi, was 3.12 billion tons, accounting for 88.1% of the country, up 0.9 percentage points over the same period of last year. The number of coal mines in China has been greatly reduced. Large-scale modern coal mines have become the main coal producers. By the end of 2018, the number of coal mines has been reduced to about 5,800, and the average production capacity has been increased to about 920,000 tons per year.

“But we should also see that the reform and development of the coal industry still faces many deep-seated contradictions and problems.” According to the report, the overall situation of coal production capacity in China remains relatively excessive, the basis of market balance between supply and demand is still fragile, and the problem of insufficient industry development is prominent.

Looking ahead to the industry development situation in 2019, the report said that coal consumption in 2019 is expected to remain basically stable with little increase; the release of domestic coal production capacity is accelerated, and the supply and demand of the national coal market will gradually change to a relaxed direction.