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Huge coalfield discovered in Xinjiang

By Yu Tianyu (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-25 17:34

A huge coalfield with 23 billion tons in reserve has been discovered in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, said its Department of Land and Resources.

The reserve is equal to ten times China's current annual coal demand, which is expected to reach 3 billion tons in three to five years.

The coalfield, about 800 m underground, covers an area of more than 300 sq km in Shanshan county in the Turpan Basin.

Yao Guoping, an official from the Coal Industry Administrative Bureau of Turpan, said it is too early to estimate the impact of the coalfield on the region's total coal production capacity and energy reserves, because the exploration of the coalfield depends on the country's pace of economic development and its overall energy demands.

Jiang Bing, an official from the National Energy Administration, said the 23 billion ton reserve is just part of the total reserve of the coalfield.He predicted the total reserve would be 100 billion to 200 billion tons.

Xinjiang, with estimated coal reserves of 1.82 trillion to 2.19 trillion tons, accounts for 40.5 percent of China's total coal reserves. With an annual production of 50 million tons, it is the country's second largest coal producer after Shanxi province.

Zhang Handong, an official with a local department which is in charge of coal exploration, said with lots of unexplored coalfields, coal exploration in Xinjiang is just in a primary stage because the cost of long-distance transport remains high.

The new coalfield, rich in low-sulfur steam coal, is close to the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway, the only rail line connecting Xinjiang to the inland cities. It is also 800 km nearer to China's inland than the region's largest Zhundong coal production base, which could cut the transportation cost by 40 yuan per ton.

Xinjiang is planning to have an annual coal production capacity of 1 billion tons by 2020, accounting for over 20 percent of China's annual coal production.