China to Close 7,000 Small Coal Miners by 2015 -Report

BEIJING, June 24 -- China aims to shut down as many as 7,000 small coal miners by 2015, according to a draft government document obtained by Chinese media on Tuesday.

About 11,000 coal enterprises are scattered throughout the country and the government wanted to reduce that figure to 4,000, the 21st Century Business Herald reported, citing the draft plan.

It said Beijing would further restructure the sector by creating 6-8 state-owned coal giants, each with production capacity in excess of 100 million tonnes per year.

China's National Energy Administration expects total primary energy consumption to reach 4.2 billion tonnes of standard coal by 2015, with coal itself contributing 2.67 billion tonnes to the total.

The draft plan said the country was also planning to lift wind power capacity to 90 GW, nuclear capacity to 30 GW, biomass capacity to 13 GW, and solar capacity to 5 GW by the end of 2015.

Renewable energy capacity is expected to contribute the equivalent of 346 million tonnes of standard coal, it added, around 8 percent of total primary energy use.

The draft plan said construction of 13 "hydropower bases" on the upstream Yellow River, the middle reaches of the Yangtze, and the Hongshui, Wu and Lancang rivers would lift total installed hydro capacity to 280 gigawatts by 2015.

It also said that total crude oil demand by 2015 would stand at 500 million tonnes, with 200 million tonnes produced domestically, while natural gas demand would reach 260 billion cubic metres with 160 million cubic metres produced by China itself.