Mainland coal mines ordered to step up safety checks
Coal mines in several major mainland mining regions have been urgently ordered by authorities to carry out safety inspections after a lethal incident on Wednesday that killed at least five people and left about 50 missing. Authorities in several regions, such as Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Shaanxi, have ordered coal miners, especially open-pit mines, to immediately conduct safety checks and local authorities to carry out inspections. "We must severely crack down on all kinds of violation of laws and regulations, giving them punishment or shutting them down to correct the problems," Dongsheng government in Inner Mongolia said in a statement on Thursday. Beijing has been urging coal mines to ramp up output since late 2021 to bolster supply and dampen soaring energy prices. Reuters news agency estimates that Beijing has approved 260 million tonnes of new coal mining capacity in 2022 and reopened dozens of mothballed mines, raising total capacity to 5.05 billion tonnes. The exact cause of the incident at the open-pit mine in Inner Mongolia – which has an annual capacity of 900,000 tonnes – on Wednesday is not clear.  Broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday the collapsed mine was originally an underground mine that closed and then reopened in 2021 as an open-pit mine. Meanwhile, market participants expect a range of strict safety checks to take place in the mainland over the coming weeks. "The accident occurred just as the major national event approaches, which will trigger a large scale of safety inspections across the country and to some extend reduce short-term coal supply," analysts from Guojin Futures said in a note. However as coal is crucial to energy security and economic activity, they said supply is unlikely to be cut sharply. (Reuters)