China urges more coal imports as shortage lingers
China should import more coal to help ease tight supplies that have triggered power shortages in many parts of the country, the General Administration of Customs said.
High international coal prices have suppressed China’s imports of the hydrocarbon, further tightening the country’s coal supply, customs said in a report on its website.
China imported 30.28 million tonnes of coal in the first seven months of the year, down 19.4 percent from a year earlier, customs said early this week.
In 2007, China shut illegal small mines with a combined production capacity of 50 million tonnes, hurting coal supply, the customs report said.
As it stages the Olympics, China faces its most serious power shortages since 2004, as generators cannot secure enough coal or refuse to pay soaring prices while selling their power at state-set tariffs.
“Lack of coal supply will surely make the shortage in electric power worse,” the report said.
Strict controls on production and distribution of explosives in the run-up to the Games cut China’s July coal output by 8 percent from a month earlier, to 220.29 million tonnes, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Thursday.
China, the world’s largest coal producer and consumer, remained a net exporter of the hydrocarbon in the first seven months of the year.
Tags: coal, imports