China Coal Price Falls to Four-Year Low Amid Economic Slowdown - Bloomberg | Power-station coal in China fell to a four-year low as industrial demand declined amid evidence the economy is slowing. . . “We see weak demand from industrial users in the first half-year, especially from heavy industrial sectors, who are major coal users,” Helen Lau, a Hong Kong-based analyst at UOB-Kay Hian Ltd., said by phone...China’s coal demand rose 1.8 percent in the first six months of 2013 to 1.93 billion tons, the China National Coal Association said in a statement on July 18. The gain was 1 percentage point down from the same period last year and 7.6 points lower than in 2011.

Pain of drop in China coal imports isn't evenly shared: Clyde Russell - Reuters | ...But it's not necessarily the higher-cost suppliers that are being squeezed out of the market...Australia has overtaken Indonesia as the top supplier of coal to China, with shipments from the Southeast Asian nation totalling 35.263 million tonnes in the first half, a gain of just 8 percent on the same period last year...However, Australian miners are likely to continue producing as the loss from maintaining output is less than that for stopping, given the prevalence of take-or-pay shipping contracts (they became common in order to give financial backing to the developers of multi-billion dollar railway and port infrastructure)

CNOOC raises trucked LNG prices on high demand - Interfax | China National Offshore Oil Corp. has hiked quoted prices for LNG trucked from import terminals in south China by more than 10%, according to a local energy consultancy.

Growing pains felt in China as price hikes kick in for natural gas - SHdaily/Xinhua | Note: Posted this the other day in Chinese. As commuters waited at a bus terminal last Wednesday, more than 50 buses were lined up outside a natural gas station in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province.Public transport fell into disarray as more than half of the city's 23 natural gas stations - serving some 3,500 buses and 4,000 taxis running on gas - closed their doors. It followed a price hike that gas stations were not allowed to pass on to customers.

天然气分布式盼科学定价机制 -中国能源报 | Summary: How will natural gas distribution be affected by new direction in wholesale prices? Will not kill the industry but effects will be chain-like. One example: generators may buy domestically mfg equipment in order to cut costs. Also, the non-residential price increases are being implemented differently in different places; e.g., Sichuan prices have not gone up as much and appear to be preserving lower prices for downstream industries. Article concludes with recommendations for differential pricing mechanisms that account for relative efficiency of different fuels.天然气价格影响分布式天然气项目几何？日前，《中国能源报》记者获悉，中国城市燃气协会分布式能源专委会、中国能源研究会分布式能源专业委员会将分别于近期组织闭门讨论会，探讨“分布式能源如何应对气价变化带来的影响”。显然，随着新的天然气价格开始实施，天然气分布式能源产业未来如何发展成为业内人士的关注焦点。

Iran To Take Chinese Subway Cars For Oil - RFE | An Iranian official says international sanctions have forced Tehran to accept subway cars from China in place of cash payments for oil. Amir Jafarpour, deputy head of Iran's Transportation and Fuel Management Committee, said the government ordered 315 carriages from Beijing for their subway system. He says billions of dollars of payments from crude-oil exports to China have not been transferred to Iran because of international sanctions.

China Looks to Kurdistan as Growing Oil Partner - Rudaw Kurdistan (Iraq) | With China already sucking up more than half of the oil production coming from Iraq, the Kurds may be next in the Chinese energy cross hairs. The Chinese begun to sink their teeth into the Kurdish Region’s vast oil potential in 2009 when Sinopec acquired Addax Petroleum, which holds a joint agreement with Genel Energy to develop the Taq Taq oil field....“Sinopec is China’s largest oil company and has immense capacity to support the development of the downstream sector, both in Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq,” Yi Zhang, the chief executive officer of Addax Petroleum, said in the report...Recently, a Chinese delegation visited Rasheed Tahir, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) minister of finance and economy, to discuss the investment potential for numerous sectors, including oil...The Kurds offer more generous terms than the central government, but Iraq and the United States consider such deals illegal, it noted...

光伏下一站：配额争夺战 - 中国能源 /深度报道 |Summary: Solar's Next Stop: Fight Over European Market Share. The new cap on Chinese PV volume sold into Europe will accelerate the consolidation of Chinese PV industry. Smaller mfgs will be at disadvantage because they have older eqpt, lower quality output and lack economies of scale. 持续一年的中欧光伏案终于峰回路转。7月27日，中国机电产品进出口商会(以下简称“机电商会”)宣布其代表中国光伏产业与欧委会贸易救济调查机关就中国输欧光伏产品贸易争端已达成价格承诺。在国内各方均表示“欢迎”的同时，业界也有声音称，出口数量的限制或将加剧企业间的竞争，由此将引发光伏行业的整合提速，更多小企业或被淘汰出局。

Heshan decision to abandon uranium plant 'unjustified - SCMP |Authorities' decision to abandon plans for a uranium enrichment plant in Heshan in the face of public pressure was a mistake, experts say. Professor Gu Zhongmao , a senior scientific adviser to the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) with the China Institute of Atomic Energy, said the Heshan government's hasty surrender in light of "uninformed public fears" would become an "international joke". The people were protesting, Gu said, because they had never been made aware of basic facts. Fears of radiation poisoning from such a plant were unfounded, as the nuclear fuel rods produced contain mostly uranium-238 - the most stable uranium isotope."A nuclear power plant emits less radiation than a coal-fired power plant, and a nuclear fuel plant is safer still," Gu said.Gu conceded that the public's knowledge of such plants may be poor, but government officials should have known better. "The best way to deal with public unrest is to tell people the truth. It is a local government's duty to inform the public about the project as much as possible," he said. "But these officials have no courage, no credibility, no accountability. They are idiots."

China-Myanmar energy pipelines to lower costs -  China Daily | ...Dr. Gao Zhikai from the China-Myanmar Friendship Association, who's also the director of the China National Association of International Studies, says the pipelines are China's most strategically important investment in Myanmar....The multibillion-dollar pipeline stretches 870 kilometres and will be able to ship natural gas and petroleum all the way from the coastal port in Myanmar to China's Southwest Yunnan Province...The designed annual capacity is 22 million tons for the oil pipeline and 12 billion cubic meters for the gas pipeline..."It shorten the distance of transportation original go through the Malacca Strait." Gao Zhikai said... Experts estimate that the pipelines will satisfy a quarter of China's natural gas demand every year ...

Changing face of Colombo - TTR/AFP | Sri Lanka has signed a deal with a Chinese company to build a US $1.4 billion city complex on reclaimed land near the harbour of the capital Colombo, an official said Wednesday.The state-run Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) will reclaim 230 hectares (568 acres) next to the new Colombo South port, said SLPA chairman Priyath Bandu Wickrama. He said the SLPA finalised a deal under which China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC) will invest US$1.43 billion to build a “Port City” that will change the coastline in the capital.