China Coal Group says to invest $15b in Xinjiang

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-12 15:13

China National Coal Group Corp said it plans to invest more than 100 billion yuan ($14.62 billion) in China's far northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region over the next five years.

China Coal will invest in coal mining, coal-fired power generation, coal chemical plants and the development of coal-bed methane. The total annual production value is expected to exceed 30 billion yuan, the company said in a statement on its website, without giving further details.

China Coal Energy Co, the listed arm of China's No 2 coal miner, has said it was suspending a 17 billion yuan project in Heilongjiang, which would have produced 10 million tonnes of coal a year.

The remote Xinjiang region holds about 40 percent of China's coal reserves, or about 2.2 trillion tons. It produced 60 million tons of raw coal in 2008, according to official data from the region's statistics bureau, and has attracted investment from large coal groups including China's top coal miner Shenhua.