China's coke industry to see integrations soon

China’s coke industry to see integrations soon

China's First International Forum on Coal, Coke and Chemicals Industry was held yesterday (May 15, 2005) in Beijing. The experts of the industry speaking in the forum forecast that China's coking industry will see a large-scale integration in the next years due to the uncontrolled capacity expansion and governmental restrictions. Currently, China has an annual coke production capacity of 250 million tons and another 80 million tons of capacity is under construction according the the Department of Industrial Policy of the State Development and Reform Commission. However, China's domestic coke consumption was 194 million tons in 2004. China's coking capacity is expected to give a 30-40% surplus over the domestic demand. On the other hand, the government will impose more restrictions on coke companies in order to protect the environment and cancel the business licenses of the companies which fail to abide by the government's environmental restrictions. China had also cancelled the tax rebate on coke exports in 2004 in order to reduce high-energy consumption and environmental pollution.