As disclosed by an insider at the Shanxi Coking Association (SCA), the SCA has already make a suggestion to the concerned central government department regarding the merger of nine state-owned coking corporations for the purpose of strengthening their voice against upper and down stream corporations by establishing a ten million mt coking group.
According to the project brought forward by the SCA, the planned coking group will involve nine corporations such as Shanxi Coking Group, Shanxi Coke Group and others which are, or whose parent companies are, directly supervised by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shanxi Province.
Shanxi Province has many diverse, small-sized coking corporations. The nine coking corporations in question have a total annual capacity of 12.45 million mt, but only account for 10 percent of the whole coking capacity of 150 million mt in Shanxi Province. The coking industry in the province has been in a state of instability, lead on many occasions to vicious price competition.
In April, the Shanxi provincial authorities issued their "Adjustment and Prosperity Plan for the Coking Industry", according to which the current 270 plus coking corporations should be reduced to 150 at most. In addition, according to the plan, by 2015 the province aims to establish several giant coking corporations with coking capacities in the range of 5-10 million mt and equipped with the best ovens in the world. Ultimately the plan aims to reduce the number of coking corporations in the province to within 60 units and to ensure that the total capacity of the top ten coking corporations account for over 60 percent of the overall coking capacity in the province.