China's 15th Five-Year Coal Plan: 87% Large-Mine Capacity, 75% Intelligent Capacity by 2030

The National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration have issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for Coal Industry Development". The plan sets targets for 2030: further strengthening coal's role as a fallback guarantee, optimizing production and development layout, increasing the share of high-quality advanced capacity, and improving the production-supply-storage-sales system, with the share of large modern coal mines' capacity rising to 87%. The level of safe, green development and clean, efficient utilization will be significantly improved, intelligent construction across the entire system will be deepened, and the share of intelligent coal mine capacity will rise to 75%. The coal-based diversified industrial structure will accelerate, coal consumption will peak, the dynamic supply-demand balance guarantee mechanism will be further improved, the industry's modern governance capacity will be significantly enhanced, and a modern coal industry system will be basically established.

The plan calls for continuing to advance coal resource exploration, strengthening comprehensive resource evaluation, increasing resource reserve scale, and ensuring sustained coal development. It emphasizes total capacity control, balancing resource development potential and regional supply-demand, reasonably arranging successive capacity scale, focusing on the five major supply guarantee bases, and prioritizing support for upstream-downstream integrated industrial development and cross-regional coal supply guarantee projects. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, new capacity must be included in the overall capacity "ledger" before implementation, and all types of new coal mine capacity must strictly implement the capacity replacement policy. It also raises the entry standards for resource development, insists on "establishing the new before abolishing the old", coordinates mine closure and regional supply guarantee, and promotes the orderly exit of backward capacity mines in accordance with market and legal principles.

Resource-rich western regions will strengthen overall development planning, improve the upstream-downstream development and utilization system, and enhance cross-regional coordinated supply capability. Construction of coal supply guarantee bases in Shanxi, Western Inner Mongolia, Eastern Inner Mongolia, Northern Shaanxi, and Xinjiang will continue, with high-standard planning of a batch of large modern coal mines to improve scale and intensive development. By 2030, output from the five major coal supply guarantee bases will account for over 80% of national output. The eastern and central regions will coordinate local energy demand, reasonably control development pace, strengthen evaluation and demonstration based on resource conditions, and moderately build successive mines. The coal reserve system will be improved, with coordinated strengthening of product, capacity, and origin reserves, and orderly advancement of reserve capacity construction. Support will be given to eligible enterprises to build coal product reserves, solid implementation of the capacity reserve system, and promotion of large coal mines to actively build capacity reserves, aiming to complete coal capacity reserves of 100 million tonnes per year or more by 2030. The inventory system for key coal mines and coal-consuming enterprises will be improved, and the regulatory capacity of the circulation sector will be enhanced.

The plan calls for scientifically planning coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas capacity and layout, orderly advancing the construction of strategic bases for coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas in Ordos, Inner Mongolia; Yulin, Shaanxi; Zhundong, Xinjiang; and Hami, Xinjiang, and strengthening capacity and technology reserves for coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas. It also promotes industrial breakthroughs in coal-to-aromatics and coal-based biodegradable materials. It actively develops a unified national coal trading market, improves basic systems and rules, enhances information sharing mechanisms, and further leverages the role of the national coal trading center. It improves the medium- and long-term contract system for thermal coal supply, promotes standardization of coal trading contracts, and strengthens contract signing and performance supervision. It improves the coal market price formation mechanism, timely refines coal price range adjustment policies based on market conditions and cost changes, and standardizes price index behavior.

The plan proposes optimizing the layout of scientific research tasks in the coal sector, improving mechanisms for rewarding technological achievements, and protecting and applying intellectual property rights. It strengthens the cultivation of innovative talent, enhances coal-related disciplines in higher education institutions, and builds a cross-disciplinary composite talent pipeline. It reinforces the principal position of enterprises in technological innovation, supports coal enterprises and research institutions to jointly create "source areas" for original technologies and serve as "chain leaders" of modern industrial chains. It improves diversified investment mechanisms, guides financial institutions to support and serve coal technology innovation, and stimulates industry innovation vitality. The plan also proposes in-depth implementation of the "AI+" action, strengthening AI data aggregation in the coal sector, and promoting systematic application of AI in key scenarios such as exploration and design, construction and production, operation and maintenance, and safety management. It accelerates the development and promotion of specialized large models for the coal sector, focuses on breaking through key technical bottlenecks in intelligent perception, autonomous decision-making, and intelligent control, and cultivates a number of pilot coal mines for AI-integrated applications. It vigorously implements intelligent transformation of mines with severe hazards and mines that have had major or larger accidents, and promotes robot substitution for hazardous and heavy-duty jobs.