China will close all small coal mines with annual production
capacity under 30,000 tons by the end of 2007, the national coal
mine safety authority said.
At a video-conference on work safety held Monday, Zhao Tiechui,
director of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, said
China will step up rectification of the coal mining sector to
improve work safety.
A relevant notice on the rectification has been circulated to
local governments, said Zhao, adding that the rectification aims to
encourage large coal mining firms to merge with smaller ones as
giant ones usually pay more attention to work safety.
The country will also complete its program to overhaul
small-sized coal mines which are more vulnerable to work safety
accidents, said Zhao.
According to the notice, those coal mines without safe
production conditions must be shut down immediately and exhausted
coal mines with mature production licenses will be excluded from
the rectification and integration drive, said the notice.
Zhao urged the local governments to carry out the coal mine
rectification step by step, so as to form a group of large coal
mine producers in the country.
After the coal mine resources integration, the annual coal
production capacity for China's major coal firms of Shanxi
province, Shaanxi province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
should be no less than 300,000 tons each.
While the annual production capacity for middle-scale coal mines
in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Gansu and Qinghai
provinces, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and Beijing should be
no less than 150,000 tons each.
China is making unprecedented efforts to address the severe
safety concerns in its collieries. A total of 3,341 coal mine
accidents were reported in China last year with a year-on-year
decrease rate of 8.2 percent, killing 5,986 people, a little less
than the previous year.
(Xinhua News Agency April 4, 2006)