Shenhua Commences to Build Coal-to-Gas Plant in Erdos      

Shenhua Group Co., Ltd. held a ceremony for breaking ground a coal-to-gas plant in Erdos of Inner Mongolia on April 8th.
   The project phase I, which is estimated to cost RMB14 billion, is scheduled for startup by 2012, targeting for producing 2 billion cubic meters of synthetic natural gas per year to meet the needs in Beijing and Tianjin markets. Meanwhile, the plant will produce byproducts like sulfur, crude phenol, naphtha, coking oil and liquid ammonia.
   Following the startup of Shenhua's coal-to-liquids facility in Erdos in 2008, the coal-to-gas plant is regarded as an additional significance in the domestic coal chemical industry.
   The domestic gas consumption grew 15% per year on average throughout 2000 to 2008 and the gas output annually grew 13% in the same period, with the gas consumption of 77.5 billion cubic meters and gas output of 76 billion cubic meters in 2008.
   Datang International Power Generation Co., Ltd. (SH: 601991) is ready for construction on a 4 billion cubic meters per year of coal-to-gas facility in Keshiketeng, Inner Mongolia, and Datang Huayin Electric Power Co., Ltd. (SH: 600744) also prepares for building a coal based1.8 billion cubic meters per year of gas pioneering project in Erdos.
   Datang Group plans to build a 20 billion cubic meters per year coal-to-gas plant in Fuxin, Liaoning province. And Inner Mongolia Huineng Coal and Power Group Co., Ltd. (Huineng) proposed to build a 1.6 billion cubic meters per year coal-to-gas plant in Erdos.
   Three coal-to-gas projects - by Datang International in Keshiketeng, Datang Group in Fuxin and Huineng in Erdos have been involved in China's petrochemical stimulate program.
   In addition, China National Offshore Oil Corporation and Datong Coal Group plan to jointly build a coal-to-gas plant in Shanxi province.