Industrial Production News
- Coal-to-liquid projects to be halted
Date: 12-Jun-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
CHINA, the world's top coal producer, will halt coal-to-liquid projects except for a plant being built by State-owned Shenhua Group Corp. Ltd., State media and local newspapers said yesterday.
The Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed official from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) as telling a biofuels conference: 'Although the successful industrial use of liquefied coal could help to reduce the country's dependence on petroleum, liquefied coal projects consume a lot of energy.'
The official also said China would face huge capital demands and higher consumption of water and coal for such projects.
The semi-official China Business News said, however, that Shenhua would be allowed to proceed with its construction of a 1-million-ton-per-year plant in Inner Mongolia.
In the past, China has encouraged projects to convert domestic coal into liquid fuels, such as gasoline, diesel or jet fuel, in an attempt to curb its dependence on imported oil.
But industry officials have long said the projects might clash with the government's push for greener growth, because of high water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
China, the world's second-largest energy consumer, imported 162.87 million tons of oil in 2006, driving the country's reliance on imported oil up 4.1 percentage points from a year earlier to reach 47 percent, official statistics show.
The NDRC official said the country had begun the coal-to-liquid projects without trials for industrial use and that the technologies involved were not yet very sophisticated.
The official estimated that the project of the Shenhua Group, parent of Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd., would cost more than 50 billion yuan (US$6.58 billion).
Yankuang Group, the parent of Yanzhou Coal Mining Co. Ltd., is also seeking government approval to build a 1-million-ton-per-year coal-to-liquid demonstration plant in Shaanxi Province.
The Chinese Government said recently it upheld the development of renewable resources as an important national strategy, and would continue to boost the development of hydro power, solar power, wind power, biomass fuel and methane.
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