Asia
HINA’s rapid economic growth of the past 20 years may have slowed in the first half of 2013, but the country’s appetite for natural resources continues unabated. Australia, Brazil and other countries in Southeast Asia have ridden the crest of China’s resource boom to reap huge profits in the past few years; China imported 743 million tonnes of iron-ore and 289 million tonnes of coal alone in 2012. But the country also possesses its own vast natural resource deposits which are crucial to its continuing economic development. China is currently the world’s
foremost coal producer, doubling its output in the past 10 years to reach 3.5
Meeting China’s bur C
China’s Shuo Huang Railway is aiming to almost triple capacity on its heavy-haul network by 2018 as it tries to keep pace with growing demand for coal. Kevin Smith examines its plans.
billion tonnes in 2011 for a 49% share of overall worldwide production. Coal is now the source of 70% of the country’s energy production. And while the Chinese government is encouraging the development of renewable energy, efforts are similarly intensifying to further increase coal extraction to meet demand from swelling urban populations as living standards rise, particularly in the growing Pearl River Delta region. The Shuo Huang Railway (SHR) is one of five railways in a 1765km network owned by the
Shenhua Group, China’s leading coal miner which also controls and operates 13 coal-powered plants. The 588km SHR began operating in 2000 and carried 234 million tonnes of coal in 2012 from Shenchi South in the coal-rich Shanxi Province, close to the Shenfu- Dongsheng coal field, to Huanghua port on China’s east coast, south of
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