Xinjiang and coal

Table 1: Proposed coal plants
For a country-wide table of proposed coal plants, see Proposed coal plants in China.

Note: Table columns may be sorted by clicking on the header.

History
Xinjiang occupies almost one fifth of China's territory. It is expected that China's coal demand will grow by 40% over the next 25 years. The global coal demand could be satisfied by the coal resources of Western Xinjiang for the next 367 years at the current consumption rate. In 2011, Xinjiang produced 120 million tonnes of coal. It was estimated that Xinjiang will produce approximately 240 million tonnes of coal per year in 2015 and over 750 million tonnes per year by 2020.

Challenges with transportation
The greatest challenge for coal providers in Xinjiang is finding affordable and effective transportation to the key energy demand centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The Western Province, where Xinjiang is located is over 3,000 km away from the coast. The Chinese government is currently working on a transport connection between these provinces. A new rail link is under construction and projected to be completed by the end of 2013. When the line is completed coal output would increase to 500Mt by 2015 and to 1000Mt by 2020 (This would be around one third of China’s current coal consumption.)

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