- Shanxi mine restarts may accelerate, subject to safety clearances
- Coking, thermal coal prices fall d-o-d as market prices in rising supply
Shanxi province, once the top coal mining hub in China, has told its provincial energy groups to speed up coal mine restarts, raising expectations that supply lost since a fatal accident in May will return, although any resumption among suspended mines is on the premise that they pass a safety check.
Governor Lu Dongliang delivered the message at a state-owned enterprise reform meeting on 13 September. Provincial energy companies must take on the “political responsibility” for stable output and supply and resume production faster, with safety as the precondition, the provincial government website reported.
Before the meeting, Lu visited Jinneng Holding Group, the country’s second-largest coal producer, and inspected coal spot trading and supply contract delivery at the Taiyuan coal trading centre. The same wording reached Jinneng’s staff the next day. The group mined about 408 million tonnes (mnt) in 2025 from its 225 mines in the province, whose combined production capacity totals 450 mnt/year.
The provincial government, however, keeps highlighting the importance of safety, adding a layer of complication of whether coal supply patterns will see a major change in the weeks ahead. A notice from Shanxi’s safety committee on 25 August says mines with unrectified hazards must stay shut and tells inspectors not to lower standards or cut procedures for speed.
Market talk has run further than any document. Some coal participants say that the winter coal-supply campaign will begin on 20 September, and that all increased capacity will be arranged by the end of the month. They say production will return to pre-accident output from 1 October, although no official statement has been announced confirming this.
Data released on 15 September indicates persisting supply pressure. National raw coal output fell 7.7% y-o-y to 361.82 mnt in August, despite narrowing from the 10.1% drop seen in July.
Meanwhile, the coking coal market has already started pricing a return. On 14 September, the most-traded contract on the Dalian exchange closed at RMB 1,588/tonne (t) ($236.8/t), down 1.5% and a fourth straight trading-day decline, about 8% below its 31 August peak.
Mysteel’s sample of 523 coking coal mines nationwide recorded their average capacity use in the week of 4-10 September at 70.8%, up 2.9 percentage points on week, with output higher and stocks building for the first time in weeks.
Thermal coal has also trended lower. According to Mysteel’s assessment, the benchmark 5,500 kcal/kg NAR coal was priced at RMB 983/t on 14 September, dipping RMB 2/t on day. This also snapped the rally begun on 24 August when the figure was recorded at RMB 861/t.
The question is no longer whether Shanxi’s lost supply comes back, but how fast and how fully. The province’s own rules make safety the deciding factor, and those days won’t come back when mines chase profits through hidden working faces, outsourcing their extraction and other illegal behaviours, Mysteel Global notes.
Note: The article is published as part of a content sharing agreement between Mysteel Global and BigMint.
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