Chinese regulators plan to be more prudent in their response to mining accidents as authorities ask coal producers to ramp up output to help stave off the country’s deepening power crisis.
The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission told miners at a meeting on Thursday that accidents would no longer result in the shutdown of nearby mines for safety inspections, local industry publication Fengkuang Coal Logistics said on social media.
The move comes as Beijing calls for mines to produce coal at full capacity for the rest of the year even if they exceed quotas.
Photo: AP
A shortage of coal heading into winter has sent prices in China and around the world surging to record levels. While demand for the fossil fuel has been strong this year as the global economic recovery gathered pace, output in China has not been able to keep up. That is partly due to tougher laws and stricter safety inspections following a series of deadly accidents.
High coal prices have constrained output at coal-fired plants that sell electricity at regulated projects. Some have shut for maintenance or refused to ramp up activities despite the power crunch, as they are operating at a loss because of the surging coal prices.
Coal prices might have reached a peak after hitting a record, although they are to remain elevated until the first half of next year, the head of the Philippines’ largest producer said.
“At these levels, people will overproduce and then there will be too much supply, so prices will drop,” Semirara Mining & Power Corp chairman Isidro Consunji said.
Power plants are switching to other less-expensive fuels, Consunji said in an interview yesterday.
The coal that Semirara produces has doubled to about US$110 per tonne from US$50 to US$65 in the second quarter, Consunji said.
China last quarter bought all of Semirara’s 1.5-million-tonne stock of unwashed coal at about US$40 a tonne, he said. The company, which exports about half of its output, sells 90 percent of its overseas shipments to China.
High-quality thermal coal loaded onto ships at Newcastle port in Australia is not likely to hit US$300 a tonne, Consunji said, after surging to US$203.20 a tonne on Friday, breaking a record set in 2008. Additional supply is expected to come to market in five to six months, he said, easing pricing pressure.
Semirara, which produces 90 percent of the Philippines’ coal output, expects to produce at its maximum capacity of 15 million tonnes this year as demand rises.
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