对电力体制进行市场化改革是中国最高层11年前的决策，延宕至今，电力改革的理论准备、舆论准备、国际经验、国内探索都已非常充分，改革能否继续，是中国政府推进市场化改革意愿和能力的试金石
Yanzhou Coal to invest $628m in Australian coal assets
EBR Staff Writer -- Published 27 March 2013
China-based mining company Yanzhou Coal Mining has outlined plans to invest A$600m ($628m) to increase the output from its Australian coal assets.
The company expects to raise the coal production capacity in Australia to 50 million metric tons by 2017, up from 26 million tons recorded in 2012, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Commenting on the developments, Yanzhou chairman Li Weimin told the news agency that the company has set a conservative target for its planned expansion in Australia.
The demand in Asia is expected to pick up in two to three years, and high-quality coal from Australian mines can capture the growth, added Weimin.
Mongolia Seeks Partner for Coal Railroad to China, Montsame Says
Bloomberg / Michael Kohn
The Mongolian government is seeking a non-state partner to build a 160-mile (260-kilometer) railway from the Tavan Tolgoi coal field to the Chinese border, the state-run news agency Montsame reported.
The government has accepted bids from 20 companies, including 14 from overseas, the agency said yesterday, without identifying any. The partner will take a 49 percent stake in the project.
Tavan Tolgoi, one of the largest coal deposits in Mongolia, has an estimated 6.4 billion metric tons of reserves, 70 percent of it coking coal for steelmaking. Mining companies at the site, including Hong Kong-listed Mongolia Mining Corp., currently deliver supplies to the border by truck.
ASIA THERMAL COAL: Traders in China switch to Indonesian low cv coal
Platts -- 27 Mar 2013
Chinese buying interest was mostly concentrated on cargoes of lower calorific value thermal coal from Indonesia Wednesday, as traders expressed fears that another decline in domestic thermal coal prices was not far away and could have a destabilizing effect on Chinese spot demand.
..."We have decided not to buy any spot overseas coal for the time being," a Guangdong-based trader said, adding that his firm would focus instead on term contract deals.
Freight costs for coal shippers have plateaued after rallying recently ...
...Some coal producers were less willing to offer cargoes until there was an outcome to talks in Japan to settle April dated annual supply contracts for power utilities.
"A number of coal producers are concentrating on the Japanese negotiations. When they are out of the way, they can start to look at the market again and sell their tons more aggressively," said a trader in Singapore.
...
"Many of the mines in Shanxi have lowered their prices at the pithead. Coal mines are under great pressure," the Chinese trader said, as he expressed uncertainty about the market's direction two months out.
"We can only hope power plants become more active and start to restock by mid-April," he said.
...
"[Chinese buyers] are convinced that Indonesian sellers will have to readjust their prices to international market conditions, depending on when the [Indian] monsoon starts to kick in," he said.
--Mike Cooper, michael_cooper@platts.com
China Coal Producers Seek New Ventures
WSJ
China's coal power sapping up water supply
China's coal power sapping up water supply
Published By United Press International - BEIJING, March 27 (UPI)
Northern China's electricity sector is depleting the arid region's water, says a new study.
Coal-fired power generators in the north, along with coal mining in the same region, were responsible for withdrawing 98 billion cubic meters of fresh water in 2010, nearly 15 percent of China's total fresh water withdrawals that year, says the Bloomberg New Energy Finance report.
While northern China has 60 percent of the country's thermal power, it contains only 20 percent of its fresh water supply.
The report cites China's top five state-owned utilities -- China Huaneng Group, China Datang Corp., China Huadian Corp., China Guodian Corp. and China Power Investment Corp. -- which together have hundreds of gigawatts of coal-fired power plants in the arid northern region.
If the five companies continue with development of coal-fired power plants, those water withdrawals would be 25 percent beyond the government's 2030 target of capping national water withdrawals at 700 billion cubic meters per year, the report says.
But retrofitting the plants with water-efficient solutions could cost billions of dollars, Bloomberg says.
"Thermal plants will have to use more efficient technologies -- but doing so will drive up both capital and operating expenditure," Alasdair Wilson co-author of the report, said in a statement.
Separate research by the China Environmental Forum, an initiative of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' global sustainability and resilience program shows that China's total water reserves dropped 13 percent from 2000-09, with the water shortage being particularly severe in the north.
China, the world's biggest coal consumer, generates about 70 percent of its electricity from coal power and that is expected to double by 2020, the forum says.
"The era of water abundance in China is over and competition for resource access between business, agriculture, and urban centers is starting to bite," said Maxime Serrano Bardisa, one of the report's authors, who is a Bloomberg New Energy Finance's water analyst.
Yet China's water scarcity likely could help to boost the country's renewable energy producers and its beleaguered solar sector, Nathaniel Bullard, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst in Hong Kong, told Quartz.
Solar and wind farms consume minimal water, so the government could choose to replace some coal-fired power stations in water-scarce regions with renewable energy.