Source: Bernama                        Date: 06 April, 2011

China Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd., the country's largest coal producer, has planned a huge investment to build a coal processing project on China-Mongolia border to better use coal imports from Mongolia. The government of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region confirmed on Sunday that construction of Shenhua's project with a planned investment of USD1.5 billion has started in Ganqimaodu Customs Processing Park.

Ganqimaodu Customs is China's major energy imports gateway with Mongolia. It handled 7.71 million tons of coal imports last year. The imports of raw coal via the customs soared by 131.8 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to reach 1.6 million tons. The first phase of production at the Shenhua project, slated for 2012, would have an annual capacity of washing 6 million tons of coal, coking 2.4 million tons, and producing 4.8 million tons of methanol and 30,000 tons of tar, respectively.