Despite China's efforts to increase the shares of natural gas and clean energy in its energy mix, the country's coal-fired power capacity is expected to increase by 19% in the next five years.

 

This means that China will most likely avoid drastic coal production cuts and will maintain healthy output volumes to prevent market imbalances, such as those of the second half of 2016, which were caused by supply shortages.

 

According to the 13th Five Year Plan (FYP), China's coal output will be limited to 3.9bn tonnes per year (tpa) by 2020. By then, the country is pledged to eliminate 800mn tpa of inefficient and outdated production capacity. 

 

China's Strategic Energy Action Plan (SEAP), for the period 2014-2020, set the country's coal consumption level at 4.2bn tonnes by 2020. The plan also targeted a 62% share for coal in primary energy consumption - which was already reached in 2016. 

 

China's Electricity Development 13th Five-Year Plan (13th FYP) in turn, stipulates more ambitious goals. This plan, which covers the years 2016-2020, sets coal's consumption cap at less than 4.1bn tonnes and its share in primary energy consumption at 58%, by 2020. 

 

This total number of coal enterprises is expected to drop to 3,000 in 2020, while the number of coal mines is expected to reach 6,000, up from the current 5,930 officially registered.