Analysis on the key direction of coal overcapacity reduction: achieving a dynamic balance between supply and demand

In recent years, my country's coal industry has been accelerating the pace of reducing production capacity. The elimination of outdated production capacity has achieved remarkable results, the industry has gradually recovered, and corporate profit margins have continued to increase.In 2018, the direction of coal overcapacity reduction has also changed from total overcapacity reduction to structural overcapacity reduction, taking the disposal of "zombie enterprises" as an important starting point, actively releasing high-quality production capacity, forcing the exit of ineffective and low-quality production capacity to speed up the exit, and further improving coal production. Proportion of advanced production capacity.At the same time, coordinate the relationship between reducing production capacity and maintaining supply, and strive to make further breakthroughs in improving capacity utilization, so as to realize the transformation and upgrading of the entire industry and improve quality and efficiency.

The government work report released on March 5 proposed to actively and steadily resolve the excess capacity of coal power and unswervingly dispose of "zombie enterprises".In 2018, we will strive to resolve about 150 million tons of excess coal production capacity; we will eliminate and shut down coal-fired power units below 300,000 kilowatts that fail to meet the standard.The General Research Institute of Coal Science recently released the report "The Coal Industry Continues to Deepen Supply-side Structural Reform", stating that the effect of coal overcapacity reduction has gradually emerged, and the industry has been optimized and upgraded.It is expected that in 2018, the overcapacity reduction task of more than 10 million tons will be completed ahead of schedule, but it will become more difficult to further advance the overcapacity reduction.

Actively release advanced production capacity to keep prices basically stable

Since 2018, the supply-side structural reform has been slightly adjusted, from "total overcapacity reduction" to "structural overcapacity reduction, systematic optimization of production capacity", effectively promoting the price of coal and other products to remain within a reasonable range.At the same time, according to the principle of reduction and replacement, the high-quality coal production capacity will be developed in an orderly manner, and the ineffective and low-quality production capacity will be forced to exit faster, and the proportion of advanced coal production capacity will be further increased.Data show that in the first half of the year, the number of coal mines in the country decreased from 12,000 at the end of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" to about 7,000.Coal mines with an annual output of less than 300,000 tons were withdrawn in an orderly manner and actively released advanced coal production capacity.The planning and construction sequence of coal power has been continuously optimized, the increase in production capacity has been strictly controlled, and the elimination of outdated production capacity of coal power has been accelerated.

Since the beginning of this year, the structural adjustment of overcapacity has been more rationalized, which not only improves the quality of coal supply, but also gradually concentrates production in the main producing provinces.The coal production capacity in the southern region was appropriately increased, and the high-quality production capacity in the northern region was gradually brought into play.Wu Lixin, deputy director of the Coal Strategic Planning Research Institute of the General Research Institute of Coal Science, said that from the trend, the proportion of coal production in the southern region will continue to decline.Among them, Hubei, Jiangxi, Chongqing and other provinces and cities may gradually withdraw from coal production.To a certain extent, this shows that the concentration of my country's coal industry is concentrated in Shanxi, Shaanxi and Mongolia, which have good resource conditions, low mining costs, and high security.Data show that in 2017, the output of 14 large coal bases in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Mongolia and other regions accounted for 94.3% of the national total, a year-on-year increase of 0.6 percentage points.There are more than 1,200 large-scale modern coal mines with an annual output of 1.2 million tons or more, accounting for more than 75% of the country's output.

In the second half of the year, in order to ensure the stability of coal supply, the pace of de-capacity of coal mines in production may slow down, and it is expected that strict safety and environmental inspections will continue.At the same time, it will coordinate key coal-producing regions and coal enterprises to increase the utilization rate of production capacity under the premise of ensuring safety, strive to increase production, and shift from "exit" to "advance and retreat".Through the orderly increase of advanced production capacity, the exit of backward production capacity can be realized as soon as possible, which not only optimizes the allocation of stock resources, but also expands high-quality incremental supply, achieves a dynamic balance between supply and demand, and strives to ensure stable supply and stable prices.

Forced "zombie enterprises" to withdraw in an orderly manner to prevent the resurgence of excess capacity

At the press conference of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress held on March 6, Ning Jizhe, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that in 2018, the bankruptcy, liquidation and reorganization of "zombie enterprises" should be strengthened to guide losses. Hopeless companies withdraw voluntarily.At present, the energy industry is deeply promoting coal production capacity reduction, and it must seize the "bull nose" of "zombie enterprises".

With the in-depth progress of resolving and eliminating excess production capacity and disposing of "zombie" enterprises, ineffective and low-end supply has been effectively reduced, the supply structure has been significantly improved, and the capacity utilization rate has rebounded.In the first half of this year, the utilization rate of industrial capacity was 76.7%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points over the same period of the previous year.However, in the process of disposal, various places also face some problems, such as the pressure of personnel placement, the difficulty in raising funds, and the big differences in the definition of "zombie enterprises".

Xu Liang, vice chairman and secretary-general of China Coal Construction Association, said that "zombie enterprises" as the focus of "Thirteenth Five-Year" in the next three years of coal production capacity reduction, we must insist on improving the quality of the supply system as the main direction of attack, according to "One enterprise, one policy" formulate a work plan to speed up the implementation of closing and clearing, overall exit, reorganization, integration, and classified disposal.In the future, we will reduce the use of administrative orders to reduce production capacity, and adhere to market-based and legal methods to reduce production capacity.

In the second half of this year, laws, regulations and standards on environmental protection, quality, technology, energy consumption, water consumption, safety and other related laws, regulations and standards will be more strictly enforced on the disposal of "zombie enterprises".At the same time, banking financial institutions have resolutely reduced and withdrawn related loans, and will not renew the safety production license after it expires.Secondly, encourage and guide relevant enterprises to comprehensively consider the project construction conditions and market prospects, take the initiative to stop construction and delay the construction of coal mine projects with poor resource conditions and weak market competitiveness, and promote the overall exit of "zombie enterprises".

Increase production capacity replacement efforts to maintain total dynamic balance

At present, it is in the peak period of summer coal consumption, but coal prices have basically remained within a reasonable range, and thermal coal prices have even fallen.The latest issue of China's coastal coal purchase price index released by the China Electricity Council showed that the prices of 5,500 kcal and 5,000 kcal coal dropped by 30 yuan/ton and 29 yuan/ton respectively compared with the previous issue.Industry insiders believe that the coal price did not rise sharply during the peak season of coal consumption, and the accelerated release of high-quality production capacity has contributed to it.

Data show that since the beginning of this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Energy Administration have approved 12 coal mine projects involving a total production capacity of 49 million tons.Most of these coal mines are located in Xinjiang, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other provinces that are rich in high-quality coal resources.In this year's list of coal mines for safety production standardization announced by the Ministry of Emergency Management and the State Coal Mine Safety Supervision Bureau, it can be found that the coal mines in high-quality coal-producing areas have greatly increased the rate on the list.

In the first half of the year, Hebei, Hunan, Fujian, Heilongjiang and other places successively organized the replacement of coal production capacity indicators. Among them, Hebei completed the replacement of 12.08 million tons of coal production capacity indicators, and Hunan involved 1.183 million tons of coal production capacity indicators. Heilongjiang Province is also organizing coal production capacity replacement.With the support of a series of production capacity release measures, my country's coal production has risen significantly.The latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in the first half of the year, the country's cumulative raw coal output was about 1.7 billion tons, a year-on-year increase of 3.9%.

In the second half of the year, the state will actively promote the coal mining capacity withdrawal standards in the southern region to gradually connect with those in the northern region, and guide the withdrawal of coal mines below 300,000 tons/year (excluding 300,000 tons/year) in an orderly manner.At the same time, the time for the closure and exit of the production capacity replacement coal mine has also been clarified.The withdrawal of coal mines in the construction of coal mine capacity replacement plan (including nuclear reduction of production capacity) must be reduced in place at the latest before the completed coal mine is put into production.The exiting coal mines in the production capacity replacement plan should be closed within 6 months after the application for production capacity increase is approved.The improvement of the production capacity replacement policy will further optimize the structure of the coal industry and improve the efficiency.According to the estimates of relevant institutions, there are currently 380 million tons of coal production capacity approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, and it is expected that the new production capacity will be about 200 million tons in 2018.

Further optimize the industrial layout and speed up the transformation and upgrading of enterprises

The "Notice on Resolving Overcapacity in Key Areas in 2018" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission on April 20 clearly requires further optimization of industrial layout, and encourages qualified enterprises to implement cross-border Regional and cross-ownership mergers and reorganizations.In addition, deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises and industrial integration, respect the laws of the market economy and the laws of enterprise development, take enterprises as the main body, give full play to the role of the market mechanism, actively promote the mixed ownership reform of state-owned enterprises in the coal and coal power fields, and continuously improve the market competitiveness of enterprises.

This year, coal industry mergers and acquisitions have made new progress.Guizhou Province is actively promoting the merger and reorganization of coal enterprises in the province, and has established a leading organization.The Chongqing municipal government cancelled the second-level corporate legal person of the coal group, laying the foundation for merger and reorganization.Sun Shouren, deputy secretary-general of the China Coal Industry Association and director of the Industry Coordination Department, said that the main idea of ​​coal industry mergers and reorganizations is to adhere to the market as the leading role, the enterprise as the main body, and the local government to strongly support, guide and create conditions.Adhere to strengthening, excellence, and expansion of the main business, and integrate development with the upstream and downstream industries of coal.Adhere to continuously improve the industrial concentration and optimize the industrial layout.

In the downturn of the industry, coal enterprises are more willing to take the road of transformation and upgrading.However, when the economy picks up and demand rises, the structural contradictions existing in the coal industry are covered up to some extent, and the willingness to transform and upgrade the industry is not strong.Wu Lixin said: "For coal enterprises located in old industrial bases, transformation is not a question of whether or not to transform, but a question of how to transform and how to transform. The transformation and upgrading of modern coal enterprises located in new areas is to seize the In the current market situation, continue to improve profitability, take advantage of the situation to expand market share, and occupy the commanding heights of the industry."

In the second half of the year, the focus of the transformation of the coal industry is to transform the development mode of the coal industry, and accelerate the transformation to innovation-driven, clean and low-carbon transformation, service-oriented transformation, and connotation-intensive transformation.The focus of upgrading is to optimize and upgrade the industrial structure, technical structure, product structure, organizational structure, layout structure, capital structure, and talent structure of the coal industry, so as to realize the transformation from the traditional industrialization path to the new industrialization path.For a period of time in the future, coal will remain the main energy source in my country.For the needs of national energy security, national economic development, social stability and enterprise survival, it is imperative to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the coal industry.

Source: CLP News Network