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The Xinjiang Bureau of Geology and Mineral Exploration reportedly identified the resource in the largely untapped region’s Tacheng district near the Kazakhstan border.
Steel market service provider SteelOrbis said the coalfield, called Heshituoluogai, had a thickness of almost 60m with the main reserves consisting of both long-flame and coking coal.
The report noted that some 20 companies had already taken interest in the discovery, including China Power Investment Corp, Luneng Group and Xuzhou Coal Mining Group.
Huge coal reserves in Xinjiang are recognized as a having a major potential impact on the dynamics of the international coal market.
Official Chinese data estimates Xinjiang’s total coal resource at up to 2.2 trillion tonnes.
The massive autonomous region which accounts for 20% of the China’s total area holds 40% of the country’s coal resources but currently supplies only 5% of domestic production.
A new rail link connecting Xinjiang with the population centers of the east is expected to be completed at the end of 2013 and could increase coal output to 500 million tonnes in 2015 and to 1000Mt by 2020.
